Memo test: standardisation of computerised assessment of auditory verbal short-term memory

Short-term memory (STM) impairments are prevalent in adults with acquired brain injuries. While there are several published tests to assess these impairments, the majority require speech production, e.g. digit span (Wechsler, 1987). This feature may make them unsuitable for people with aphasia and motor speech disorders because of word finding difficulties and speech demands respectively. If patients perceive the speech demands of the test to be high, the may not engage with testing. Furthermore, existing STM tests are mainly ‘pen-and-paper’ tests, which can jeopardise accuracy. To address these shortcomings, we designed and standardised a novel computerised test that does not require speech output and because of the computerised delivery it would enable clinicians identify STM impairments with greater precision than current tests. The matching listening span tasks, similar to the non-normed PALPA 13 (Kay, Lesser & Coltheart, 1992) is used to test short-term memory for serial order of spoken items. Sequences of digits are presented in pairs. The person hears the first sequence, followed by the second sequence and s/he decides whether the two sequences are the same or different. In the computerised test, the sequences are presented in live voice recordings on a portable computer through a software application (Molero Martin, Laird, Hwang & Salis 2013). We collected normative data from healthy older adults (N=22-24) using digits, real words (one- and two-syllables) and non-words (one- and two- syllables). Their performance was scored following two systems. The Highest Span system was the highest span length (e.g. 2-8) at which a participant correctly responded to over 7 out of 10 trials at the highest sequence length. Test re-test reliability was also tested in a subgroup of participants. The test will be available as free of charge for clinicians and researchers to use.

Brain-computer music interfacing for continuous control of musical tempo

A Brain-computer music interface (BCMI) is developed to allow for continuous modification of the tempo of dynamically generated music. Six out of seven participants are able to control the BCMI at significant accuracies and their performance is observed to increase over time.

Parents' verbal communication and childhood anxiety: a systematic review

Parents’ verbal communication to their child, particularly the expression of fear-relevant information (e.g., attributions of threat to the environment), is considered to play a key role in children’s fears and anxiety. This review considers the extent to which parental verbal communication is associated with child anxiety by examining research that has employed objective observational methods. Using a systematic search strategy, we identified 15 studies that addressed this question. These studies provided some evidence that particular fear-relevant features of parental verbal communication are associated with child anxiety under certain conditions. However, the scope for drawing reliable, general conclusions was limited by extensive methodological variation between studies, particularly in terms of the features of parental verbal communication examined and the context in which communication took place, how child anxiety was measured, and inconsistent consideration of factors that may moderate the verbal communication–child anxiety relationship. We discuss ways in which future research can contribute to this developing evidence base and reduce further methodological inconsistency so as to inform interventions for children with anxiety problems.

Verbal short‐term memory performance in pupils with Down Syndrome

Research has shown that verbal short‐term memory span is shorter in individuals with Down syndrome than in typically developing individuals of equivalent mental age, but little attention has been given to variations within or across groups. Differences in the environment and in particular educational experiences may play a part in the relative ease or difficulty with which children remember verbal material. This article explores the performance of 26 Egyptian pupils with Down syndrome and 26 Egyptian typically developing children on two verbal short‐term memory tests: digit recall and non‐word repetition tasks. The findings of the study revealed that typically developing children showed superior performance on these tasks to that of pupils with Down syndrome, whose performance was both lower and revealed a narrower range of attainment. Comparisons with the performance of children with Down syndrome in this study suggested that not only did the children with Down syndrome perform more poorly than the typically developing children, their profile also appeared worse than the results of studies of children with a similar mental age with Down syndrome carried out in western countries. The results from this study suggested that, while deficits in verbal short‐term memory in Down syndrome may well be universal, it is important to recognise that performances may vary as a consequence of culture and educational experiences. The significance of these findings is explored with reference to approaches to education and how these are conceptualised in relation to children with disabilities.

Verbal hygiene in the Hong Kong gay community

This paper explores the status and function of English among gay men in Hong Kong through the analysis of postings about English on a popular gay internet forum. The forum, gayhk.com, while mainly featuring discussions about sex, fashion, entertainment and relationships, also contains a surprising amount of discussion about the English language, mostly taking the form of what Cameron refers to as ‘verbal hygiene’ – the enforcement of language ‘standards’ through the criticism of the language use of particular individuals or groups. The analysis of these postings sees them not just as evidence of language attitudes within the gay community, but also as tools with which Chinese gay men in postcolonial Hong Kong position themselves in relation to one another, in relation to ‘foreign’ gay men, and in relation to the wider population of Hong Kong.

The acquisition of verbal paradigms in Dutch and Greek L2 children: cross-linguistic differences and inflectional defaults

Previous research with children learning a second language (L2) has reported errors with verb inflection and cross-linguistic variation in accuracy and error patterns. However, owing to the cross-linguistic complexity and diversity of different verbal paradigms, the cross-linguistic effects on the nature of default forms has not been directly addressed in L2 acquisition studies. In the present study, we compared accuracy and error patterns in verbal agreement inflections in L2 children acquiring Dutch and Greek, keeping the children’s L1 constant (Turkish). Results showed that inflectional defaults in Greek follow universal predictions regarding the morphological underspecification of paradigms. However, the same universal predictions do not apply to the same extent to Dutch. It is argued that phonological properties of inflected forms should be taken into account to explain cross-linguistic differences in the acquisition of inflection. By systematically comparing patterns in child L2 Dutch and Greek, this study shows how universal mechanisms and target language properties work in tandem in the acquisition of inflectional paradigms.