Education Commons^™

Preliteracy Skills Promoted In Children’S Spanish-Language Books, Katherine Marie Suter

Masters Theses

As of July 1, 2013, the latest census figures indicate that there are approximately 54 million Latinosliving in the U.S. (US Census Bureau, 2013). However, many Latino children still do not receive the services or resources they need to perform well academically. The primary aim of this research study is to determine if the books available to Spanish-speaking Latino¹ populations in two Michigan Counties contain features that might be used to facilitate beginning pre-literacy skills.

Children’s Spanish-language books from bookstores and public libraries were analyzed to determine the presence of features that might facilitate print awareness, phonological awareness, and …

Executive Functions And Social Interactions: Developing Social Scenarios, Mackenzie Waite

Masters Theses

The aim of this study was to develop a series of vignettes to form the basis for an assessment of executive functions (EFs) for 9 – 12 year old children. Although EFs are necessary for effective social communication and positive social interactions, currently, most EF assessments focus on impersonal activities. Little research exists that incorporates real-time processing using ecologically valid social scenarios. The current study aims to develop realistic scenarios that children could encounter in daily life. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with six participants, who worked in a school with 9-12 year old children, to gain their perspective on social …

Explicit Teacher-Implemented Phoneme Awareness Instruction: Preschool Effects, Heather M. Osterhouse

Masters Theses

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the impact of explicit, concentrated, teacher-implemented phonological awareness instruction for ―at risk‖ 4- year-olds. Early childhood educators were trained to implement a 10-week program delivered for 20-minute sessions, four times a week, in their classrooms. The program focused on phonological awareness beginning at the level of letter-sound knowledge and advancing to blending and segmenting constituent phonemes in words. Pre- to post-treatment comparisons of phonological awareness and letter knowledge skills indicated that children in the experimental group made significant gains in comparison to the control group in phoneme blending and letter knowledge. …

Preschoolers With Speech And Language Impairment: Case Studies From A Teacher-Delivered Phonological Awareness Program, Katherine J. Wickham

Masters Theses

Past and present research demonstrates early reading success related to phonological awareness (PA) instruction conducted individually or in small groups outside of the preschool classroom. This study investigated the effects of an explicit, intensive and teacher-delivered PA instruction for children with speech sound disorder and language impairment as part of the preschool curriculum. The investigator examined the performance of individual cases in both groups, those who received instruction and the control. Two participants in each of the experimental (E1 and E2) and control (C1 and C2) groups had standardized scores indicating deficits in speech and/or language. These children who received …

A Strategic Plan For Engaging Undergraduate Speech Pathology And Audiology Students In The Research Enterprise, Stephen M. Tasko

Academic Leadership Academy

The goal of this project is to develop a strategic plan for the Speech Pathology and Audiology Research Experience, which is a program designed to increase undergraduate student engagement in research activities. The emphasis on undergraduate students is based on the view that the sooner research opportunities are introduced and ‘demystified’, the sooner students envision this as a viable professional option.

Reading, Writing, And Repetition: Performance On Nonword Measures Bystudents With And Without Language-Learning Disabilities, Patricia J. Tattersall

Dissertations

The central purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to explore the ability of school-age children with and without language-learning disabilities (LLD) to apply sound/word level structure knowledge when performing speaking, spelling, and reading tasks. Data came from a larger investigation that used stratified sampling to create two ability groups—children with typical language (TL) and with LLD—comparable in terms of age (range 6 through 18 years), sex, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.

The central purpose of this three-paper dissertation was to explore the ability of school-age children with and without language-learning disabilities (LLD) to apply sound/word level structure knowledge when performing speaking, …

Perceptions And Intervention Practices Of Speech-Language Pathologists Serving Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders, Laura A. Getty

Dissertations

A relationship between emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) and language deficits has been validated by researchers in special education (Cantwell & Baker, 1991; Beichman, Cantwell, Forness, Kavale, & Kaufmann, 1998; Cohen, Barwick, Horodezky, Vallance, & Im, 1998) as well as researchers in speech-language pathology (Hyter, 2003; Hyter, Rogers-Adkinson, Self, Simmons, Jantz, 2001; Ruhl, Hughes, & Camarata, 1992; Gallagher, 1999; Fujiki, Brinton, Morgan, & Hart, 1999). The exact prevalence rate between E/BD and language deficits was not definitive as it varies between 35% and 97% depending on the study reviewed (Benner, Nelson, & Epstein, 2002). While it has been documented that a relationship …

Work Stress, Non-Work Stress And Mental Health Among School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists: Effects Of Social Support, Lena Gloria Caesar

Dissertations

This study utilized secondary data from the Work and Well-being of SLPs survey (Caesar, 2004) to examine possible sources (predictors) of work stress, job satisfaction, and psychological distress among 409 speech-language pathologists (SLPs) employed in public school settings in Michigan. This study also investigated the relationship of work-related and non-work-related stress to the mental health status of SLPs and sought to determine the mediating and/or moderating effects of varied types of social support on the mental health of respondents. Data analysis was done in three stages. First, each of the dependent and independent variables were described statistically. Secondly, correlation analyses …

Factors Affecting School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists’ Use Of Language Assessment Practices With Bilingual Children, Lena Gloria Caesar

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify the assessment procedures and practices of school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) employed in the state of Michigan. A survey method was used to gather information from 409 SLPs regarding the assessment procedures used for assessing both their bilingual students, as well as their monolingual English-speaking students. The survey also gathered information regarding perceptions about language proficiency, professional training, and bilingual assessment products. In order to analyze factors related to their use of recommended practices, the study investigated the relationship between selected demographic, caseload, and work-setting variables, and the type of bilingual assessment methods …

Measuring Spelling Growth Over Time In Elementary Writing Samples, Pamela M. Ansell

Masters Theses

Developmental spelling stage theories have been proposed and disputed for 30 years. The current study used Gentry's (1982) model to assign category ratings to narrative writing samples produced by 32 students over two years to observe developmental growth over time. In addition, quantitative measures were obtained from the samples, including an index of control (Laminack & Wood, 1996) and a percentage correct. Analyses were also used to test the effectiveness of using a writing lab approach (Nelson, Bahr & Van Meter, 2004) on spelling development. During the last half of second grade, all 32 students received intervention guided by the …

Effects Of Adult Modeling On Literacy Behaviors Of Head Start Preschoolers, Stephanie L. Kerbel

Masters Theses

This project explored the uses of literacy artifacts in the dramatic play of preschool children from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds who live in poverty in Kalamazoo County. The purpose of this 9-week study was to determine the impact of adult modeling on the frequency and quality of use of literacy artifacts during the dramatic play of at-risk preschoolers. Two Head Start classrooms received different types of intervention: (a) a literacy-enriched dramatic play area with adult modeling for 5 minutes at the start of each play period ( once per week); and (b) a literacy-enriched dramatic play area without adult …

Story Writing By Students With Hearing Impairments, Lois A. Ketchum

Masters Theses

Students with hearing impairments (N = 21) wrote a personal narrative each academic year from 1990 to 1992. These narratives were rated on maturity of the story as a whole and maturity of the language used in the story by senior undergraduate students in the education department at Western Michigan University. The method used for rating was a holistic magnitude estimation technique.

Significant change over time was found for story scores, but not language scores. Grade level was found to have no significant effect on change from first to last ratings for either story scores or language scores. Degree of …

Teacher And Student Discourse Variables In Academic Communication, Janet M. Sturm

Masters Theses

This study was designed to analyze the oral communication exchanges between first, third, and fifth grade teachers and their students. It was based on the hypothesis that discourse parameters of linguistic quantity and complexity and communication acts change over grade level, much as the discourse parameters of caregivers with young children have been found to do. The language of teachers and students in 15 classrooms was examined by measuring 6 form and quantity variables and 11 communication act variables. Results showed significant differences for some form variables (MLU, mazes, and Type-token ratio) and some communication acts (convey content, mark content, …