Single-word Responses Research Articles

Decoding prognosis: Unraveling physicians' responses in electronic treatment plans.

230 Background: Communicating prognosis to cancer patients is a critical aspect of shared decision making in healthcare. Practices in The US Oncology Network (The Network) use an electronic version of a treatment plan based on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) care management plan for patients receiving cancer treatment. Physicians document in their own words the prognosis section of the treatment plan. This study seeks to better understand the responses provided by physicians in the prognosis section. Methods: We evaluated word frequency analysis using FreqDist library, conducted sentiment analyses using the Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) Sentiment Intensity Analyzer, and performed thematic analyses using Latent Dirichlet Allocation library on a random sample of 35,000 treatment plans developed in 2023 for practices in The Network. Results: 32% of the responses were 5 words or less, with 3.8% single word responses. Words like “excellent, good, fair, poor, guarded” or a combination thereof were commonly used to describe the prognosis. 26% of responses were ≥12 words in length, and generally were personalized to the patient’s disease, treatment, and/or contained situation specific narratives. Responses <12 words generally contained templated phrases, or minimally customized responses. 38% of the responses contained a numerical value, representing either a percentage probability of survival, chance of response to treatment, or a quantification of time (months, years). Thematic analyses conducted on responses ≥12 words revealed that the predominant theme focused on survival represented in different ways, followed by response to therapy, probability of recurrence or relapse, and disease control. Sentiment analyses revealed that 60.6% of responses denoted a negative sentiment. 71.7% of responses ≤5 words in length had a negative sentiment, compared to 58.3% of responses ≥12 words in length. Conclusions: This study reveals that prognosis responses from physicians used on treatment plans shared with patients are very diverse. The manner in which prognosis is presented to patients can greatly influence their understanding, engagement, and involvement in making treatment decisions. To optimize shared decision making in cancer care, healthcare providers must strive to effectively communicate prognosis by using clear and empathetic language, ensuring patient comprehension, and tailoring the information to individual patient needs and preferences. The data set has high potential for further study to better understand the role and impact of written treatment plans to help physicians refine this documentation for better patient understanding.

Articulation Test for Bahdini Kurdish Preschool Children

ABSTRACT 
 Articulation tests record and analyze children’s speech and they are used to determine which sounds children can or cannot say or if the speech errors the children produce are developmentally appropriate or they are delayed. The aim of this study was to develop an articulation test for Bahdini Kurdish preschool children. For this purpose, a picture-naming test was designed to elicit spontaneous single-word responses representing 26 consonants in initial, medial and final positions and 8 vowels in medial positions. Seven experts were asked to review the test and complete a questionnaire. Then, it was presented to 65 normal Bahdini Kurdish speaking children. They were 38 males and 27 females from three different age groups: 3, 4, and 5 years old. The children’s responses were recorded and then scored for each correct utterance and picture identification. The results show that there are no significant differences among the experts’ responses which reflect their approval for the test to be a valid tool for collecting the phonetic inventory of the children. There is a significant and high correlation between correct word utterances and picture identification which prove the content validity of the test. Finally, there are no significant differences between males and females which indicates that the test is suitable for both genders, while significant differences were found among age groups in which old children performed better than younger ones. Thus, the test is a valid and a reliable tool that can be applied to collect the phonetic inventory of Bahdini Kurdish speaking children.

Infant vocalizations elicit simplified speech in childcare.

Infant babbling has an important social function in promoting early language development by attracting caregiver attention and prompting parents' contingent, simplified speech, which is more learnable for infants. Here, we demonstrate that prelinguistic infant vocalizations also create learning opportunities for infants in childcare settings by eliciting simplified and more learnable linguistic information during teacher-infant interactions. We compared the rates and complexity of contingent and non-contingent verbal interactions of 34 childcare teachers during a one-on-one free play interaction with a familiar infant under their care (M=12.6months old). As compared to non-contingent utterances, teachers' contingent utterances included fewer unique words, a higher proportion of single-word responses, and a shorter mean length of utterances. Teachers did not change their response length based on infants' syllable type and were equally likely to respond to vowels and consonant-vowel vocalizations. Sources of individual differences in the simplification effect related to infant behaviors and teacher characteristics are discussed. The results parallel previous findings demonstrating the simplification effect in parent-infant interactions. That teachers also show this simplification effect when responding to infant vocalizations suggests the power of infant prelinguistic vocalizations for organizing caregiver attention in various settings to elicit simplified, learnable language.

Construct validity of the focus on the outcomes of communication under six (FOCUS) total and profile scores for multilingual preschoolers: Considering functional speech skills

Purpose To conduct an exploratory study to establish construct validity of the Focus on the Outcomes of Communication Under Six (FOCUS) in the Jamaican context for FOCUS Total and Profile scores. Method Parents of a representative sample of 3-to-6-year-old Jamaican Creole (JC)-English-speaking simultaneous bilingual children completed the FOCUS in English, and the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) in JC and in English. Children completed the Diagnostic Evaluation of Articulation and Phonology (DEAP) in both languages. Percent phonemes, consonants, and vowels correct were calculated using single word responses to DEAP items. Pearson correlations were completed to describe relationships between measurement scores. Result Convergent validity was found for FOCUS Total and ICS/JC scores. Convergent and divergent validity were found for specific FOCUS Profile scores and ICS/JC scores. Minimal evidence of convergent validity was found with FOCUS Total scores and transcription-based measures of speech production in JC and in English. Convergent and divergent validity were found between specific FOCUS Profile scores and some transcription-based measures of speech production in JC and in English. Conclusion This study provides evidence of construct validity for FOCUS Total and Profile scores. It also provides validity evidence for FOCUS scores in a multilingual context using a representative sample of children that serves to broaden the range of applicability of the FOCUS.

PROBLEMS AND APPROACHES IN CHILDREN FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION AT AGE 1-3 YEARS OLD IN YEMEN

<p>This study argues the problems and approaches in acquiring the first language at age 1-3 years by children in Yemen. Some stages like pre-production, early production, stage of the first-word stage, beginning fluency in its beginning intermediate, and advanced level are treated in this study. To solve the problem, theories relating to acquiring the first language are employed, these theories include (Varshney, 2003), (Lyons, 1981), (Bolinger, 2002), (Chomsky, 2009), (Gleason J. B., 1998), (Steinberg D. D., 2003), (Fromkin, 1983), (Langacker, 1973), (Wells, Children’s Language and Learning, 1980). This study is carried out by employing descriptive qualitative research. The target children are from Yemen aged 1-3 years old. The researcher’s daughter and son are taken as a subject for this study. Then he observed them for a long time and recorded them by using video aids that help him to collect data. After collecting the data, the researcher notices some problems regarding acquiring the first language. These problems include errors in speech sounds, incorrect words, reproduction, duplication, rectification, specifying the question, naming by experience, single-word response. He also finds out a number of approaches regarding acquiring the first language like pre-production, early production, first word, beginning fluency stage, intermediate fluency stage, and advanced fluency stage. Finally, Children first language acquisition can be arisen by exposing it to their parents and others surrounding them.<strong></strong></p>

Does texting make you slower?

Two studies had undergraduates (n = 237) walk a path in a university building which included walking up a set of stairs, through two hallways and walking down a flight of stairs back to the research lab. Subjects responded to text messages with a single word reply or multi-word reply and also served as their own control. Subjects were 5 s slower when texting and walking in Experiment # 1 (multi-word response) and 3 s slower when texting and walking in Experiment # 2 (single word response). No order effects (control condition first, experimental condition first) were observed in either study, ruling this out as a possible confound. While it was expected that texting and walking would impede walking speed when responding with a multi-word response, these results also show that texting disrupts walking even when respoding with a single, less attention demanding, word answer. Thus, even in a condition that requires minimal cognitive effort, walking speed was compromised while texting at the same time. Implications for these results are discussed.

Development of Articulation Screening Tool to Assess the Articulation Errors in Urdu Speaking School Going Children

Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and more than 100 million people speak Urdu worldwide. Urdu has 43 phonemes, however, there are some distinct phonemes in English and Urdu languages that affect the accuracy of test results. Ultimately, it leads to difficulty in assessment, diagnosis and intervention planning. This study is aimed to develop a criterion based articulation screening tool to identify articulation errors in Urdu speaking school going children. For this purpose, 500 Urdu words were selected after literature review for eliciting spontaneous single word responses at initial, medial and final positions. 10 professionals were requested to review and rate each word on a scale ranging from 1 – 5 (1=strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral, 4=agree, 5= strongly agree). Pilot study was conducted on 25 Urdu speaking school going children to check content validity. The mean score of all the responses was calculated and the top three responses were selected for further application. In the second application, 200 school going children including 100 boys and 100 girls were included. Their responses comprising sound utterances at initial, medial and final positions were converted to mean scores. Mean scores of expert opinion, pilot study and final application of UAST were calculated using Excel spreadsheets. The minimum mean score of selected words was 3, whereas the maximum mean score was 5. Final application proves the validity of UAST. The minimum mean score of selected words was 4.5, whereas the maximum mean score was 5. The study proved that UAST is a valid screening tool to screen articulation errors in Urdu speaking school going children.

Word-initial trill clusters in children with typical versus protracted phonological development: Bulgarian

ABSTRACTThe current paper describes acquisition of word-initial (WI) trilled /r/ in clusters and as a singleton in 60 Bulgarian 3–5-year-olds with typically developing (TD) versus protracted phonological development (PPD). A native speaker audio-recorded and transcribed single-word responses to a picture-naming task (110 words) that included eight words with WI rhotic clusters and two with WI singleton /r/. Accuracy was significantly higher in the TD groups and for the PPD groups, by age. Mismatch patterns varied: the PPD cohort had the most varied patterns although the younger children with PPD showed more /r/ deletion in clusters, and the TD groups and 5-year-olds with PPD more substitutions for /r/. Substitutions for rhotics included taps (most frequent; possibly an acceptable variant), voiced uvular and palatal fricatives, laterals, glides, other rhotics, stops and nasals. These results add to the growing database on Bulgarian phonological acquisition concerning accuracy and mismatches by group and age.

Intelligent fuzzy spelling evaluator for e-Learning systems

Evaluating Learners' Response in an e-Learning environment has been the topic of current research in areas of Human Computer Interaction, e-Learning, Education Technology and even Natural Language Processing. The current paper presents a twofold strategy to evaluate single word response of a learner in an e-Learning environment. The response of the learner to be evaluated would consist of errors committed due to lack of knowledge and also out of inadvertent mistakes committed while typing the answers. The proposed system benevolently considers such errors and still marks the learner partially. The feature incorporated in this work adds the human element to the mechanised system of evaluation and assessment in an e-Learning environment.

Phonological development of first language isiXhosa-speaking children aged 3;0–6;0 years: A descriptive cross-sectional study

Standardized assessments of children’s isiXhosa phonology have not yet been developed and there is limited information about developmental norms in this language. This article reports on the phonological development of 24 typically developing first language isiXhosa-speaking children aged 3;0–6;0 years, in Cape Town, South Africa. The order and age of acquisition of isiXhosa phonemes, emergence and elimination of phonological processes and percentage consonants and vowels correct are described. A set of culturally and linguistically appropriate pictures was used to elicit single word responses that were recorded and transcribed. The study found that children had acquired most isiXhosa phonemes by 3;0 years although aspirated plosives, affricates, fricatives and clicks were still developing. In particular, the affricates and aspirated plosives were still developing in the 5-year-old children in this sample, suggesting that these may be the latest acquired segments. Children were able to produce basic word shapes by 3;0 years, but some of the words of 4–6 syllables were still being mastered by the 4- and 5-year-old children. Phonological processes that have been well documented for other languages were used by children in this sample (e.g. deaffrication, stopping and gliding of liquids). Findings presented for this pre-school-aged sample are related to theories of phonological acquisition to provide normative data on phonological development in isiXhosa-speaking children.

Sequence Comparison Applied to Correction and Markup of Multi-Word Responses

In some instructional situations, such as foreign language dictation, the degree of correctness of a student's text response can be determined without reference to grammar and semantics by comparison with a target string provided by a course author. The standard sequence comparison procedure, which assesses the distance between two strings in terms of edit costs, makes demands on machine time proportional to the product of the string lengths. This characteristic renders it impractical for real-time correction of multi-word responses on current instructional computer systems. We present a much faster but nonadmissible version of other applications, thereby bringing the technique within range of current microcomputers. The usual method for generating markup for single word responses does not generalize well to multi-word responses because it fails to recognize word boundaries, and will sometimes suggest edits that seem unnatural to users. We propose an extension which attends to word boundaries and thereby recommends corrections that appear more reasonable.

‘All the Lads and Lasses’: lexical variation in Tyne and Wear

Taking as our starting-point the results of an investigation conducted on data collected in the 1950s for the Survey of English Dialects (SED) (Glauser, 1985), in this paper we look at data collected between forty and fifty years after the SED to examine variation in the semantic fields BOYS/GIRLS; SONS/DAUGHTERS. Glauser's SED data consisted of single-word responses mainly from older male informants to questions such as: ‘Children may be of either sex: they're either….boys, or …. girls.’1 (Orton, 1962: 89), but we have examined data from two more recent sources – the Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English (DECTE) and Burbano-Elizondo's (2008) study of linguistic variation in Sunderland – in order to ascertain which words occur in these semantic fields. Whilst Glauser's observation that lad is elicited more frequently than lass is borne out, we find that, in the sense of ‘sexual partner’, where these words do not appear in the SED data, lass is used more frequently than lad in the more recent data from Tyneside and Sunderland. We also find that, whilst there is no clear correlation between use of the words lad and lass and the social class of speakers, males use both these words more than females.

Listening practices in English conversation: The responses responses elicit

This article describes listening practices in English conversation from an Emancipatory Pragmatics perspective, focusing on the role of the listener as a modality of action and seeking to evaluate linguistic behaviors like responses in terms of cultural assumptions about politeness, turn-taking, silence, and overlapping talk. In producing minimal response tokens, a listener signals a willingness to remain (predominantly) silent, to refrain from interrupting and to attend to the primary speaker, and thereby encourages the speaker to continue with a multi-unit turn. But even single word responses can have a significant effect on the trajectory of an extended turn by another speaker. Response tokens differ widely in their degree of obtrusiveness, such that some listener responses like uh-huh attract little or no attention to themselves and essentially never evoke a specific response of their own, while assessments like wow, on through signals of processing difficulty like oh, and challenges like so increasingly attract the attention of the primary speaker and elicit a response in their own right. This ranking in terms of obtrusiveness or insistency differs from other sub-classifications or scales so far described in the literature on listener responses.

Long-term repetition priming in spoken and written word production: Evidence for a contribution of phonology to handwriting.

Although it is relatively well established that access to orthographic codes in production tasks is possible via an autonomous link between meaning and spelling (e.g., Rapp, Benzing, & Caramazza, 1997), the relative contribution of phonology to orthographic access remains unclear. Two experiments demonstrated persistent repetition priming in spoken and written single-word responses, respectively. Two further experiments showed priming from spoken to written responses and vice versa, which is interpreted as reflecting a role of phonology in constraining orthographic access. A final experiment showed priming from spoken onto written responses even when participants engaged in articulatory suppression during writing. Overall, the results support the view that access to orthography codes is accomplished via both the autonomous link between meaning and spelling and an indirect route via phonology.

Developing an Articulation Test for Arabic-Speaking School-Age Children

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop an Arabic articulation test using familiar and visually transparent words in order to be used as a criterion for comparing phonemes of both normal and phonologically disordered Arabic-speaking children. Material and Methods: A picture-naming test was designed for the Mansoura Arabic Articulation Test (MAAT) to elicit spontaneous single-word responses representing all possible consonant positions and vowels of Colloquial Egyptian Arabic. Three expert phoniatricians were asked to review MAAT and complete a questionnaire. The MAAT was presented to 100 normal Arabic-speaking Egyptian children randomly selected from the first- and second-grade kindergarten. They were 52 males and 48 females with ages ranging between 42 and 70 months. Children’s responses were converted to a percent correct score for sound utterances and picture identification. Results: Statistically non-significant differences were found among experts’ opinions reflecting approval for the MAAT items. A statistically highly significant adequate correlation was found between correct word utterances and picture identification which proved the content validity of MAAT. Test-retest reliability proved the consistency of MAAT. Conclusion: MAAT is a valid and reliable test that can be applied to collect the phonetic inventory of Arabic-speaking young children.

A PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF THE EMERGENCE OF NOVEL MAND FORMS

Strategies that produce generalized responding are valuable, especially with regard to language acquisition, because relatively little training may result in large behavior changes. Conditions that result in generalized manding were analyzed in the current study. We demonstrated in reversal designs that undesirable or single-word responses were the predominant mand forms of 3 preschool children. Multiple baseline designs with 2 participants and a reversal design with 1 participant were then used to demonstrate the extent to which differential reinforcement of single-word mands (e.g., "cars") or framed mands (e.g., "I want the cars, please") would result in the emergence of other single-word and framed mands for different items (e.g., mands for music, puppets, or puzzles). Results showed that prompting and differential reinforcement of one or two mand frames resulted in the emergence of other framed mands for all participants.

Neural correlates of semantic and episodic memory retrieval

To investigate the functional neuroanatomy associated with retrieving semantic and episodic memories, we measured changes in regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) with positron emission tomography (PET) while subjects generated single word responses to achromatic line drawings of objects. During separate scans, subjects either named each object, retrieved a commonly associated color of each object (semantic condition), or recalled a previously studied uncommon color of each object (episodic condition). Subjects were also scanned while staring at visual noise patterns to provide a low level perceptual baseline. Relative to the low level baseline, all three conditions revealed bilateral activations of posterior regions of the temporal lobes, cerebellum, and left lateralized activations in frontal regions. Retrieving semantic information, as compared to object naming, activated left inferior temporal, left superior parietal, and left frontal cortices. In addition, small regions of right frontal cortex were activated. Retrieving episodic information, as compared to object naming, activated bilateral medial parietal cortex, bilateral retrosplenial cortex, right frontal cortex, thalamus, and cerebellum. Direct comparison of the semantic and episodic conditions revealed bilateral activation in temporal and frontal lobes in the semantic task (left greater than right), and activation in medial parietal cortex, retrosplenial cortex, thalamus, and cerebellum (but not right frontal regions) in the episodic task. These results support the assertion that distinct neural structures mediate semantic and episodic memory retrieval. However, they also raise questions regarding the specific roles of left temporal and right frontal cortices during episodic memory retrieval, in particular.

ICD-10 diagnosis of specific speech and language development disorders

Diagnostics of developmental speech- and language disorders is based primarily on the criteria severity of involvement and pattern. Regarding phonological disorders single word articulation tests are widely used because of efficiency considerations. However they are insufficient for ICD-10 diagnostics, because severity of involvement and pattern are influenced from the fact that children are spontaneously talking or giving single word responses. "Percentage of Consonants Correct (PCC)" and "Percentage of Consonants Correct for early, middle and late consonants" are described as an articulation competence metric, whereas "Natural Process Analysis" is proposed to describe the pattern of the disorder. Three case studies are used to outline the methods. Data show that "Percentage of Consonants Correct" is a good metric to index severity of involvement and "Natural Process Analysis" is a prerequisite to describe the pattern of the disorder.

The Quality of Digitized and Synthesized Speech

This paper reviews factors contributing to the quality of digitized and synthesized speech. Digital recording and playback of speech generally produces highly intelligible and natural-sounding speech provided that the sampling rate and quantization levels are adequate. Among the design factors important for the quality of synthesized speech are (a) the accuracy and sophistication of text-to-phonetic-code conversion algorithms and (b) the type of digital data (LPC or formant data) and the attention paid to spectral transitions across phonemic boundaries, the latter being, in part, a function of the unit of speech employed for synthesis (phoneme or diphone). To maximize the intelligibility and comprehension of synthesized speech, (a) single word responses should be avoided in favor of phrases and sentences, (b) discourse should be kept relatively simple with fewer and clearly stated propositions, (c) the rate of presentation should be slower than normal, (d) listeners should be exposed to and trained to discriminate synthesized speech, and (e) noise and other distractions should be kept to a minimum.

An examination of vowel errors in phonologically disordered children

The speech of 15 phonologically disordered children between the ages of 3; 8 and 6; 4 was analysed for the presence of vowel errors. Speech samples consisted of single word responses to objects, pi...