Digital Commons Network^™

Are Hearing Aids Designed For All Parts Of The World? An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study, Preeti Pandey

Dissertations, 2020-current

The affordability of hearing aids (HA) is a significant barrier to ownership in low-and middle-income countries (WHO, 2021). Crowded living conditions in developing countries intensify the complexity of listening environments compared to developed nations. No existing literature compares the listening environment and HA outcomes using real-world measures across these regions. This study aims to 1) compare HA outcomes and listening environments between India and the USA, and 2) evaluate the benefit of premium HAs over basic HAs in both locations. In an observational, multi-location, single-blinded study, nineteen hearing aid users (mean age 69.6 years) participated. Ecological momentary assessments (EMA) were …

Magnitude Estimations Of Angular Motion: Test-Retest Reliability, Elizabeth C. Pahygiannis

Dissertations, 2020-current

Dizziness and imbalance are one of the most common complaints of people 65 years and older, as it affects 20-30% of this population and puts one at a higher risk of falling (Iwasaki & Yamasoba, 2015). Vestibular impairments are identified through measures of vestibular reflexes such as the VOR. However, the extent of impairment observed through the VOR may not correlate with the patient’s perceptions of their symptoms (Kobel et al., 2021).A large portion of patients with vestibular symptoms cannot be diagnosed with the testing that is currently available (Agrawal et al., 2009). Magnitude estimation is a psychophysics technique used …

The Effect Of Listening Level On Listening Effort: A Pupillometry Study, Noelle Elizabeth Steele

Dissertations, 2020-current

Listening in adverse conditions such as in the presence of background noise or at a low intensity level can require additional listening effort. While the relationship between signal to noise ratio and listening effort has been reported previously, there is a gap in the literature on the effect of listening at different levels on listening effort. In the present study, five young, normal-hearing listeners were tested for speech understanding at two presentation levels (35 dB and 65 dB) under three signal to noise ratio conditions (0, -3, and -6 dB). Peak pupil dilation was measured using a Tobii T60 XL …

The Effect Of Dance Training On The Vor During The Video Head Impulse Test, Miranda Scalzo

Dissertations, 2020-current

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is essential to maintain clear vision during head movements and can be assessed through the head impulse paradigm (HIMP). The suppression head impulse paradigm (SHIMP) is used to quantify the ability to suppress the VOR. MacDougall et. al. (2016) demonstrated that SHIMP gain is decreased compared to HIMP gain values in healthy adults. Previous research has supported the idea that vestibular trained athletes, such as dancers, have an enhanced capability of suppressing the VOR than those without vestibular training. The objective of this study was to assess VOR suppression capabilities at increased velocities, similar to what …

Assessing The Effects Of Emg Target Levels On Cvemp Thresholds, Melanie Johnson

Dissertations, 2020-current

Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP) measure function of the saccule and inferior vestibular nerve by evoking inhibitory electromyogram (EMG) responses from the sternocleidomastoid muscle using short duration stimulation. Previous research has shown that cVEMP amplitude increases relative to EMG target level and latency remains constant, yet there is little to no research demonstrating the relationship between EMG target level and cVEMP threshold. The objective of this study is to determine the effects of EMG activation on cVEMP thresholds and assess whether patients who generate larger tonic EMG during cVEMP testing have lower cVEMP thresholds. cVEMPs were recorded in 20 …

The Directional Effect Of Target Position On Spatial Selective Auditory Attention, Heesung Park

Dissertations, 2020-current

Spatial selective auditory attention plays a crucial role in listening in a mixture of competing speech sounds. Previous neuroimaging studies have reported alpha band neural activity modulated by auditory attention, along with the alpha lateralization corresponding to attentional focus. A greater cortical representation of the attended speech envelope compared to the ignored speech envelope was also found, a phenomenon known as 'neural speech tracking’. However, little is known about the neural activities when attentional focus is directed on speech sounds from behind the listener, even though understanding speech from behind is a common and essential aspect of daily life. The …

Impact Of Diabetes Mellitus On Vestibular Function: A Scoping Review, Ellen M. Jones

Dissertations, 2020-current

Diabetes mellitus (DM) encompasses a group of metabolic diseases that result in high blood sugar (i.e., hyperglycemia). By 2030, it is anticipated that 578 million adults worldwide will have DM, with this number growing at a faster rate in developed areas of the world.^[27] If left uncontrolled, DM can cause considerable damage to several areas of the body, including the heart, kidneys, nerves, and ears. When focusing exclusively on the ears, there has been markedly less research on the vestibular system when compared to the auditory system, even though DM is a known risk factor for falling. The purpose …

Assessing Word Recognition In Infants With A History Of Chronic Otitis Media, Sarah Wright

Dissertations, 2020-current

Otitis media (OM) is a common ear-related disorder diagnosed in children that can cause a temporary conductive hearing loss. The fluctuating hearing loss may alter auditory processing which may interfere with language development while impacting quality of life for infants and their caregivers (Homøe et al., 2019). In several languages, eleven-month-old infants have shown a preference for familiar words over unfamiliar words using the head-turn preference paradigm. This study examines the effect of chronic OM on the preference for familiar or unfamiliar words in eleven-month-old infants. Fourteen eleven-month-old infants (mean age 344 days) with three or more diagnosed ear infections …

Reality Of Counseling In Pediatric Audiology Clinical Practice, Lara Leggio

Dissertations, 2020-current

The overwhelming nature of hearing loss identification often causes families to experience grief and confusion. Children as young as nine months old with severe hearing loss have the option to undergo cochlear implantation (CI) surgery with the hopes of restoring normal hearing. Pediatric audiologists accompany families through the identification of hearing loss and the learning process that coincides with this surgery. Despite knowledge that parents of children with communication disabilities will experience a sense of loss and have moderate to severe cyclic emotional reactions, little is known about how audiologists manage the emotional needs of families, if they feel prepared …

Magnitude Estimates Of Angular Motion: Perception Of Speed And Spatial Orientation Across Visual And Vestibular Modalities, Erin Hernon

Dissertations, 2020-current

Both the vestibular system and optokinetic system generate conjugate eye movements in response to either movement of the head or movement of the visual surround. Both systems help to maintain gaze stability. While the VOR is most sensitive to input frequencies above .2 Hz, the optokinetic system helps maintain gaze stability at lower frequencies. Previous research on perceptual thresholds across the two sensory modalities shows that there are frequency-dependent differences between vestibular and visual perception. The purpose of this study is to extend previous vestibular psychophysics work by 1) comparing magnitude estimates from vestibular stimulation to visual stimulation across multiple …

Role Of Emg Monitoring On Cvemp Testing In Preschool Age Children, Brenna Murray

Dissertations, 2020-current

While cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP) testing has largely been studied and practiced on the adult population, less is known about the best practices for performing cVEMPs on a pediatric population, especially in young children under the age of 5 years. Further, very young children (i.e., 2-3 years) often prefer to sit with their caregiver during the testing, yet there is very little data on how much electromyographic (EMG) activity a child generates if in a seated position as opposed to a supine position. The purpose of this study was to assess the role of EMG on cVEMP recordings …

Dynamic Measures Of Referential Communication Reveal Hidden Pragmatic Strengths For Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mariana Schreuders

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The ability to communicate effectively and efficiently while maintaining mutual understanding is a fundamental aspect of human-to-human interaction. Studies have shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face challenges in areas of social communication skills, such as aspects of referential communication; or the ability to refer to things in such a way that a listener will know what the speaker is describing. The current study used data from a preexisting Barrier study to compare the referential communication abilities of school-aged children with ASD to those of neurotypical children (NT). Referential communication was observed during a barrier task, where participants …

Pre-Pulse Inhibition In Mutated Mice: Studying Compromised Microglial Cells To Discover New Genetic Connections To Autism, Bailey R. Kramarik

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

Microglial cells “play a pivotal role in refining neural networks during early critical periods” (Gabriele & Gray, 2020, p. 1). A disturbance in the functioning of these microglial cells contribute to specific characteristics of some neurodevelopmental disorders- including autism spectrum disorder. In this study, we used a mouse model to study disruptions in cell activity, as understanding the biological and genetic background of autism spectrum disorder could help us provide better treatment and therapy options to those diagnosed.

The mutated mice in this experiment have microglial cells with “compromised fractalkine signaling” (Gabriele & Gray, 2020, p. 4-5). We studied multimodal …

Temporal Modulation Transfer Functions Of Amplitude-Modulated Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials In Young Adults, Kerri Lawlor

Dissertations, 2020-current

Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMPs) are widely used to evaluate saccular function in clinical and research applications. Typically, transient tonebursts are used to elicit cVEMPs. In this study, we used bone-conducted amplitude-modulated (AM) tones to elicit AMcVEMPs. This new approach allows the examination of phase-locked vestibular responses across a range of modulation frequencies. Currently, cVEMP temporal modulation transfer functions (TMTFs) are not well defined. The purposes of the present study were 1) to characterize the AMcVEMP TMTF in young, healthy individuals, 2) to compare AMcVEMP TMTFs across different analysis approaches, and 3) to determine the upper frequency limit of …

A Survey Of Cochlear Implant Clinical Protocols In India, Ariana Morris

Dissertations, 2020-current

The most recent data published in December 2019 records that approximately 736,900 registered cochlear implantation devices have been received since their approval in the 1980s. While 183,100 of these devices belong to U.S. Citizens, the large majority of cochlear implant recipients live in other countries (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). While a lack of standardized practices exists in relation to audiologic care and management of cochlear implant devices and patients, Browning et al. (2020) attempts to assess and analyze common practices amongst audiologists practicing within the United States of America. This survey uses a modified questionnaire based …

Quasi-Experimental Design And Outcomes Of A Graduate Clinician And Caregiver-Infant Coaching Intervention In A University Speech-Language Pathology Program, Shiree C. Harbick

Dissertations, 2020-current

Infants are born ready to learn language as one of their most critical developmental tasks, yet infants subject to environmental risk factors related to poverty and low maternal education have been shown to lag behind their peers in language development as early as 8 months of age. Research also indicates the quality of an infant’s language environment can significantly diminish the effects of these risk factors. This quasi-experimental clinical research study explored the effects of a preventive caregiver-infant coaching intervention delivered by graduate student clinicians in a university speech-language pathology program.

Developed based on a systematic review of preventive programs …

Measuring Referential Communication Dynamically In Older Children With Asd, Caitlin Lee

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Research finds individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are relatively ineffective and/or inefficient at referential communication. However, this research typically uses static metrics of efficacy (how accurately messages were relayed) and efficiency (overall word count), rather than dynamic ones (e.g., Does the speaker alter subsequent descriptions when the listener previously misunderstood them?). The aim of this research is to use dynamic measures of efficacy and efficiency to examine how speakers with and without ASD adjust their message to meet listener needs across time. Fifteen older children with (n = 8) and without (n = 7) ASD were included. …

Like, It’S Important: The Frequency And Use Of Like In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Rebekah Jones

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Background & Aims: Discourse markers, such as well or like serve a variety of functions to support conversational reciprocity: filling pauses, aiding word-finding, holding conversational turns, and providing information about pause length. Previous research shows that individuals with ASD use discourse markers less frequently than neurotypical (NT) peers; however, the discourse marker like has been left out of that research, despite its ubiquitous use by NT individuals, and despite the fact that like serves important pragmatic functions that are not encoded by any other discourse marker. Specifically, like signals to the listener that the content of upcoming speech is 1) …

Responses To Partner Comments And Acknowledgements In Students With And Without Autism, Kaitlyn Bresette

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Some children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) initiate and respond less frequently than neurotypicals (NT) during language sampling tasks. More information is needed regarding how partner behaviors, such as comments and acknowledgements and the sampling context, influence the types of responses provided by children with ASD. This research study examined responses to adult comments and acknowledgments in two language sampling tasks, a traditional Share and Tell sample and a Double Interview sample (Garcia-Winner, 2002).

Participants. Fifty-eight participants, between the ages of 10 and 17 years, were recruited across two labs. The sample consisted of 28 adolescents with ASD …

The Relationship Between Quality Of Life Outcomes And Social Hearing For Cochlear Implant Recipients Using The Nciq And Pipsl, Bonnie A. Purtill

Dissertations, 2020-current

Unmanaged hearing loss can have profound cognitive, social, and emotional impacts on a person’s life. Cochlear implants improve functional skills such as auditory detection and speech discrimination, and have also been shown to improve quality of life. Health related quality of life (HRQoL) measures are a great tool to assess mental, physical, and social changes after cochlear implantation. While previous research has established improvement in HRQoL after cochlear implantation, there remains a lack of research evaluating long-term effects of cochlear implants for post-lingually and bilaterally deafened adults. Using a disease specific HRQoL questionnaire—Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (NCIQ) and a social …

Amplitude-Modulated Cvemp (Amcvemps) Versus Transient Cvemp Response Properties: Possible Implications, Andrew Thorne

Dissertations, 2020-current

Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMPs) elicited by steady-state amplitude-modulated (AM) tones yield different information than conventional cVEMPs elicited by transient tonebursts, such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and phase coherence (PC). This study systematically examined the effects of tonic EMG activation on AMcVEMP response properties versus conventional transient cVEMPs. Thirty five young, healthy adults (ages 19–23) with normal audiograms and no known vestibular lesions participated in this study. AMcVEMPs were elicited with bone-conducted tones with a carrier frequency of 500 Hz and an amplitude modulation frequency of 37 Hz, and transient cVEMPs were elicited by 4-0-4 Blackman-gated 500 Hz tonebursts …

Remote-Frequency Masking And Speech Perception In Adults, Taylor L. Arbogast

Dissertations, 2020-current

The primary purpose of this study is threefold: to use SRT measurements to examine the effect of various remote-frequency, narrowband maskers on adult’s perception of narrowband speech, to compare the performance between low and high band speech stimuli, and to evaluate the combination of these approaches by examining the correlation between the masking effect observed with speech and pure tone stimuli. Twelve subjects aged 22-34, with hearing thresholds no worse than 15 dB HL for frequencies 500-8000 Hz, participated in two listening tasks. In the speech perception task, coordinate response measure (CRM) sentences and their maskers were separately filtered into …

Objective Detection Of Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials, Daniel J. Romero

Dissertations, 2020-current

Cervical and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMPs and oVEMPs, respectfully) are considered objective tests of vestibular function measured using surface electromyography (EMG). In addition, VEMPs are visually detected by an examiner, often requiring a high level of stimulation to the ear to easily visualize a waveform plotted across time. However, a high level of stimulation, like those used during routine VEMP testing, is problematic since it has been shown to be unsafe in children when compared to adults. Visual interpretation can also vary between examiners in cases of reduced vestibular function or when the level of required muscle contraction …

Influence Of Musicianship, Socioeconomic Status, And Working Memory On Children’S Speech Recognition In Noise, Victoria H. Whitney

Dissertations, 2020-current

Superior speech recognition in the presence of background noise has been repeatedly observed among musicians. For children whose auditory skills are immature or delayed, improved speech-in-noise understanding via musical training could have significant clinical implications. The present study considered the impact socioeconomic status (SES) and working memory have on musicians’ greater skill during such tasks in order to better understand the mediating factors of the proposed musician advantage, as well as provide additional evidence of its existence. Participants were recruited by the Laboratory for Auditory Perception in Children and Adults at James Madison University. Ultimately, twenty-five normal-hearing children between the …

Effect Of A Small Change In Auricle Projection On Sound Localization, Elizabeth N. Surface

Dissertations, 2020-current

Pinnae assist in sound localization, and changes in auricle shape, position, or projection can theoretically alter the perceived position of a sound. The minimal displacement required to affect perceived sound location is undefined. This study quantified the error in horizontal sound localization when auricle projection is slightly decreased. The study was conducted at two sites by different experimenters, using different (though similar) systems, over a year apart. There were 21 normal-hearing participants: 11 at the University of Virginia (UVA) and 10 at James Madison University (JMU). Both UVA and JMU protocols involved a normal listening condition and a second condition …

Language Sampling With Older School-Aged Children: Examination Of Analyses And Sampling Contexts, Michelle Lenhart

Dissertations, 2020-current

Purpose: Conversation, narrative, and expository language sampling contexts are recommended for school-aged children (Pezold et al., 2020), and multiple ways to analyze these samples have been promoted in the clinical literature. This dissertation addressed two gaps in the literature related to analyses and sampling contexts. The purpose of study one was to examine differences in two commonly-used language sample analysis methods, Sampling Utterances Grammatical Analysis Revised (SUGAR) and Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT). The purpose of study two was to examine the presence of age-related changes in conversation, narrative, and expository contexts for older school-aged children.

Method: Conversational, narrative, …

Dual Task Study Of Cognitive And Postural Interference: Development Of A Methodology For Use In Vestibular Disorders, Valerie Beacham

Dissertations, 2020-current

For patients with vestibular impairments, postural stability alone can be demanding but is more taxing when an individual’s attention is focused on both maintaining balance and a secondary/cognitive task simultaneously. Thus, dual task paradigms where balance must be maintained while performing postural and cognitive tasks concurrently provides an assessment on one’s attentional resources available for balance. Previous studies show varying levels of dual task effects in patients with vestibular loss with little consistency between studies regarding choice of balance and cognitive tasks. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of a dual task paradigm using portable instrumentation …

Assessing Word Recognition Through Head Turn Preference In Infants With Chronic Otitis Media, Allison E. Schmidt

Dissertations, 2020-current

Previous studies across a variety of different languages have shown that eleven-month-olds tested via the head-turn preference paradigm show a preference for familiar words over unfamiliar words, as demonstrated by longer look times. This study examined the effect of chronic otitis media on the preference for familiar over unfamiliar words. Nine eleven-month-old children (mean age 342 days, SD = 9.61) with chronic ear infections, defined as three or more diagnoses before the test date, were tested using wordlists adapted from a study performed by Vihman et al. (2004). Children with a history of chronic otitis media did not show a …

The Influence Of Side-Lying Position On Oropharyngeal Swallow Function In At-Risk Infants: An Exploratory Study, Julian White

Dissertations, 2020-current

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) are the primary healthcare providers responsible for the evaluation and treatment of infant feeding and swallowing disorders. At-risk infants, such as those born prematurely or with certain medical conditions, are more prone to swallowing impairments (i.e., dysphagia). Dysphagia in at-risk infants can have severe consequences such as chronic respiratory symptoms, pneumonia, progressive lung disease, undernutrition, and death. Therefore, it is important to have methods of examining an infant’s swallow functioning that are both safe and accurate. A leading method of evaluating infant swallowing is the Modified Barium Swallow Study (MBS). The works contained within this dissertation document …

The Examination Of Morpho-Syntactic Production In Bahamian Children Exposed To Bahamian Creole English And English, Danielle Moss

Dissertations, 2020-current

Purpose. Information on the morpho-syntax development of children who speak varieties of Bahamian English, such as Bahamian Creole English (BCE), remains understudied. Therefore, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) assessing the expressive language of children who speak BCE encounter challenges in making clinical judgments of language difference, developmental errors, and language disorder because they are unable to judge the morpho-syntactic features of this creole to the rules of another variety of Bahamian English, standard English (SE¹), as both varieties, BCE and SE, are independently rule-governed. This dissertation study investigated the morpho-syntax of typically developing four and six-year-old Bahamian children who speak …