Effect of Healthy Aging and Gender on Syntactic Input Processing: A P600 Event-Related Potential Study.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the effect of healthy aging and gender, as well as the interaction, thereof, on syntactic input processing during sentence comprehension. This was achieved through the recording of the P600 event-related potential. METHOD: Sixty Flemish (native speakers of Dutch) participants (30 men and 30 women), equally distributed into three age groups (young, middle-aged, and older adults), were subjected to a visually presented word order violation task under simultaneous electro-encephalography recording. The task contained 60 sentences, of which half were grammatical and half contained a word order violation. P600 responses were analyzed for amplitude, latency, topographical distribution, and source localization. RESULTS: Regarding the effect of healthy aging, no age-related differences were found for the amplitude, onset latency, and topographical distribution of the P600 effect (difference wave). Although aging effects on the P600 effect amplitude were absent, a reduced P600 amplitude in response to both the grammatical and ungrammatical sentences was found, next to a reduced overall degree of source activation in linguistic regions of interest. Also, a reduced behavioral accuracy in response to the word order violation was observed in the older adults group. Regarding the effect of gender, females exhibited a larger P600 effect amplitude and a reduced behavioral accuracy compared to males. No gender-related differences were found for P600 effect onset latency, topographical distribution, and source activation. CONCLUSIONS: While this study demonstrates no effect of aging on the P600 effect, the lower behavioral response and absence of any activation shift argues against functional compensation. Moreover, although increased neural activation in women combined with their reduced behavioral accuracy may indicate the use of different cognitive strategies in men and women, source localization analysis could not objectify this hypothesis.

Knowledge of the Voice in the Teachers' Population and their Ability to Refer Children with Voice Disorders to a Speech-Language Pathologist.

OBJECTIVES: The objectives of this study were to investigate (1) the knowledge of primary school teachers regarding voice and voice disorders, (2) the primary school teacher's ability to identify and refer a dysphonic child to a speech-language pathologist (SLP), and (3) potential contributing factors that might affect this ability. METHOD AND MATERIALS: Thirty-one primary school teachers (30 women, one man) with a mean age of 33 years (range: 22-57 years; SD: 11.1 years) were included in this study. They filled out an online questionnaire, gathering demographic information, estimations of their knowledge regarding voice and voice disorders, and their ability to refer a dysphonic child to an SLP. Furthermore, they completed an online quiz (maximum score: 9) with basic questions about the voice, vocal health and voice disorders. RESULTS: Most teachers (58.1%) rated their knowledge as basic, 16.1% as adequate and 25.8% as good. One out of four teachers (25.8%) received voice-related information during their education. A substantial part (38.7%) gathered information through other channels, such as voice therapy. Almost all participants (90%) reported to have no or little experience with dysphonic children. Half of them (51.6%) felt unsure about their ability to refer a dysphonic child to an SLP, and 54.8% were willing to attend extra voice workshops. A significant association was found between the estimated knowledge regarding voice (disorders) and attendance of voice therapy (P = 0.020). More than half of the teachers who attended voice therapy (57.1%) estimated their voice-related knowledge as good, compared to only 16.7% of the teachers who did not attend voice therapy. Moreover, a significant association was found between the years of teaching experience and the quiz total score (P = 0.040). The majority of the teachers with the least teaching experience (57.1%) achieved a score between 4 and 6, whereas the teachers with more experience achieved a score between 7 and 9. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the voice-related knowledge of primary school teachers is limited. Consequently, teachers do not feel confident in referring a dysphonic child to an SLP. As teachers can be important sources in indirect assessment of pediatric dysphonia, they need to be well informed and extensively trained in using voice screening protocols. Interdisciplinary cooperation between SLPs and teachers should be optimized to provide the best available care and improve the children's quality of life.