Brain Anatomy
Broca’s Area: FRONTAL LOBE
-Crucial for operations in both production and perception of speech
-What allows you to speak correctly
-If damaged, you know what you want to say but can’t say it
What are the 3 components of language?
Form:
-Phonology (sounds system)
-Syntax (word order)
-Morphology (word endings)
Content:
-Vocabulary (lexicon)
-Semantics (work meaning/ relationships)
Use:
-Pragmatics (functional use of language in social context)
What is overhearing/ how does it relate?
-Overhearing leads to incidental learning
-Incidental learning is essential for acquiring new information and vocabulary
-80%-90% of learning occurs incidentally
-D/ HH often do not “over hear” communication that happen 1) outside the bubble of the microphone on their ammonification and 2) in a noisy environment
-Exposure through routines like bedtime, bath, meals, trips to the store, etc.. help D/HH children learn more
What is ToM
This is when children understand that other people have different feelings, intentions, and desires than them and acknowledge that.
Refers to the ability to know about your own and other people’s mental states
How to prevent auditory fatigue:
-allow for listening breaks during the day
-consider classroom acoustics
-schedule down time without listening activities
-consider impacts of amplification
Wernicke's Area: TEMPORAL LOBE
-Crucial for language comprehension
-What allows you to understand language
-If damaged, can speech properly but don’t know what you are saying
Impact of Hearing loss on FORM:
Reduced mean length of utterance
Decreased use of articles (a, the)
Decreased use of auxiliary verbs (is, are, was, were)
-Tense, Voice, Mood
Incorrect use of pronouns
Yoshinaga-Itano Study
Parents checked off which tasks/ pragmatic objectives their children had using (Not present, Uses no words preverbal, uses 1-3 words, and more complex language)
Basically what we did in linguistic milestone project
What age does this occur and what will happen is their Tom Skills are fully developed
Usually happens around age 5-6
If a child has fully developed ToM skills should be able to recognize how somebody is feeling as well as understand facial expressions. Even the ability to recognize varying tones of voice. Distinct emotional states or intentions might be indicated by difference in tone of voice.
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss fun facts: name 3/ How to prevent it?
Almost 21 million american adults have hearing damage that occurs in everyday activities
About 1 in 5 young adults already have this type of hearing loss
Most of time people don’t realize that the loud noise from common activities contributes
The louder the noise and longer the exposure, the more hearing damage will occur
Harmful to inner hear, generally permanent
Can damage cells and membranes in the cochlea/ cause them to die
Effects can continue even after noise exposure has stopped
Prevention:
Avoid noisy environments
Use ear plugs
Keep volume down
If spoken language is NOT the end goal
it’s ok for doorway to remain shut
What is MLU/ Important factors about it?
-MLU= MEAN LENGTH OF UTTERANCE
-MLU for child with hearing loss may be lower than these until Hearing Age (HA) advances
-MLU SHOULD be around the are of the child (ex: MLU of 3 for a 3 year old, MLU of 4 for a 4 year old)
Normal Hearing Group
-44% of the items were mastered by 3 y/o
-96% of the items were mastered by 4 y/o
-98% by 5 years
-100% by 6 years
Who made the standards of Classroom Acoustics/ facts/ top noise offenders?
American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
Only 10%-30% of classrooms meet the standards
Top noise offenders: Heating and air conditioning systems, reverberation off of surfaces
What area of the ear is most sensitive to noise
the high frequency regions of the cochlea are most sensitive to noise damage because they are closest to the entrance. Can cause Permanent Threshold Shift (PTS) aka Permanent hearing loss
If spoken language is the end goal
the doorway must be opened via medical intervention/ amplification. In order for language skills to be maximize
Impact of Hearing loss on CONTENT:
Reduced receptive and expressive vocabulary
Less use of specific category labels
Requires more attention on object-function
Needs extra teaching for idioms, metaphors, other figurative language
Difficulty with multiple meaning words
D/ HH Group
-Earliest items to master
-making polite requests using words please, thank you
-expressing needs
-role playing with props
-Many items that D/HH group did NOT master by 7 y/o
What is SNR? Why is it useful?
Useful for estimating how understandable speech is in a room
The sound level of the teacher;s voice in dB minus the background noise in room in dB
The larger to SNR, the greater the speech intelligibility
If SNR is negative, the teacher is hard to understand
Temporary Threshold Shift (TTS):
A short term shift in auditory thresholds
typically due to noise exposure
causes ringing in ears
Shift of greater or equal to 10 dB at 2, 4, and 4 Khz is considered TTS
Neural circuits in auditory cortex that are specialized for speech and language are located where?
Speech production & Speech perception happen MOSTLY in Left hemisphere
Impact of Hearing loss on USE:
Providing information on request
Repairing incomplete sentences
Apologizing
Requesting clarification
-Asking questions to problem solve
-Retelling stories
-interjecting appropriate comments
Early identification...
-Early Identification and intervention benefits both normal hearing and D/HH people. It emphasizes the importance of early support and intervention for people with hearing loss.
-Immature receptive and expressive language skills result in pragmatic difficulties
SNR specifics/ fun facts: name 3
Classrooms with a SNR less than +10 dB significantly degrades intelligibility for children with normal hearing
Children with hearing loss need at least a +15 dB SNR
Children under the age of 13 but specifically, K and 1st graders are most affected by excessive noise
What is NRR and what are the highest ratings?
Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) Indicates the level of sound that earplugs block out
Highest NRR rating for earplugs alone = 33
Highest NRR rating for earmuffs alone = 31
Combining can offer up to 36