Phonological awareness training and phonological therapy approaches for specific language impairment children with speech sound disorders: a comparative outcome study.

PURPOSE: Children with specific language impairment (SLI) might present with speech sound disorder (SSD) and phonological awareness (PA) deficits which put them at risk of potential reading problems. This work aimed to organize an intervention program in Arabic for phonological training and to assess the effect of PA training versus the phonological therapy (PT) for children with SLI and SSD. METHODS: The study was carried out on 60 children with comorbid SLI and SSD, aged 5-7 years. Children were equally divided into two groups; each group received language therapy combined with (PT or PA training). Measures of language development, phonological output, and PA were taken before therapy and at 4 month post-therapy for all children. RESULTS: The two therapy groups made nearly the same amount of progress in the development of language and phonological production, with no significant differences regarding language age and percent of consonants correct (PCC). The PA training group progressed more on the PA skills than children who received PT over the same time. CONCLUSIONS: PA training could facilitate the development of phonological skills by targeting the child's awareness of phonemes and improving the production of sound patterns.

Fabrication and Optimisation of Ti-6Al-4V Lattice-Structured Total Shoulder Implants Using Laser Additive Manufacturing.

This work aimed to study one of the most important challenges in orthopaedic implantations, known as stress shielding of total shoulder implants. This problem arises from the elastic modulus mismatch between the implant and the surrounding tissue, and can result in bone resorption and implant loosening. This objective was addressed by designing and optimising a cellular-based lattice-structured implant to control the stiffness of a humeral implant stem used in shoulder implant applications. This study used a topology lattice-optimisation tool to create different cellular designs that filled the original design of a shoulder implant, and were further analysed using finite element analysis (FEA). A laser powder bed fusion technique was used to fabricate the Ti-6Al-4V test samples, and the obtained material properties were fed to the FEA model. The optimised cellular design was further fabricated using powder bed fusion, and a compression test was carried out to validate the FEA model. The yield strength, elastic modulus, and surface area/volume ratio of the optimised lattice structure, with a strut diameter of 1 mm, length of 5 mm, and 100% lattice percentage in the design space of the implant model were found to be 200 MPa, 5 GPa, and 3.71 mm-1, respectively. The obtained properties indicated that the proposed cellular structure can be effectively applied in total shoulder-replacement surgeries. Ultimately, this approach should lead to improvements in patient mobility, as well as to reducing the need for revision surgeries due to implant loosening.

Multistage Tool Path Optimisation of Single-Point Incremental Forming Process.

Single-point incremental forming (SPIF) is a flexible technology that can form a wide range of sheet metal products without the need for using punch and die sets. As a relatively cheap and die-less process, this technology is preferable for small and medium customised production. However, the SPIF technology has drawbacks, such as the geometrical inaccuracy and the thickness uniformity of the shaped part. This research aims to optimise the formed part geometric accuracy and reduce the processing time of a two-stage forming strategy of SPIF. Finite element analysis (FEA) was initially used and validated using experimental literature data. Furthermore, the design of experiments (DoE) statistical approach was used to optimise the proposed two-stage SPIF technique. The mass scaling technique was applied during the finite element analysis to minimise the computational time. The results showed that the step size during forming stage two significantly affected the geometrical accuracy of the part, whereas the forming depth during stage one was insignificant to the part quality. It was also revealed that the geometrical improvement had taken place along the base and the wall regions. However, the areas near the clamp system showed minor improvements. The optimised two-stage strategy successfully decreased both the geometrical inaccuracy and processing time. After optimisation, the average values of the geometrical deviation and forming time were reduced by 25% and 55.56%, respectively.

Assessment of dysphonia: cepstral analysis versus conventional acoustic analysis.

OBJECTIVE: In this study, we aimed to determine the extent to which smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) can replace or complement the conventional acoustic measures of jitter, shimmer, and harmonic-to-noise ratio in the assessment of various types of dysphonia. METHODOLOGY: A total of 60 males and 80 females were divided into two groups: dysphonic group and control group (30 males and 40 females in each group). The voice samples in the form of sustained vowel /a/ phonation and continuous speech were recorded and assessed using auditory perceptual analysis, acoustic analysis, and cepstral analysis. RESULTS: Jitter was found to have the best predictive ability during sustained phonation, whereas CPPS was found to have the best predictive ability during continuous speech. CONCLUSION: Cepstral analysis is as reliable as the conventional acoustic analysis in the diagnosis of dysphonia and to detect its severity. However, CPPS cannot replace conventional acoustic measures.