Speech and Hearing Science Commons^™

Exploring Attrition And Linguistic Shifts: The Impact Of Covid-19 And Anti-Asian Discrimination On The East And Southeast Asian Diaspora, Amy Wan-Ling Lin

University Honors Theses

This thesis investigates the complex interplay of language and identity among speakers of East Asian and Southeast Asian languages in the United States, within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the concurrent rise in anti-Asian hate. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach to delve into these complexities, guided by three research questions exploring changes in language use since the onset of the pandemic, changes in perspective on language identity since the onset of the pandemic, and the effect of geopolitical climate, specifically the rise in Asian hate, on language use and perspective on language identity. The qualitative methodology employed …

Behavioral Management Of Respiratory/Phonatory Dysfunction For Dysarthria Associated With Neurodegenerative Disease: A Systematic Review, Sarah E. Perry, Michelle Troche, Jessica E. Huber, Jordanna Sevitz, James Curtis, Brianna Kiefer, Qiana Dennard, Deanna Britton, Multiple Additional Authors

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose:

This systematic review represents an update to previous reviews of the literature addressing behavioral management of respiratory/phonatory dysfunction in individuals with dysarthria due to neurodegenerative disease.

Method:

Multiple electronic database searches and hand searches of prominent speech-language pathology journals were conducted in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses standards.

Results:

The search yielded 1,525 articles, from which 88 met inclusion criteria and were reviewed by two blinded co-investigators. A large range of therapeutic approaches have been added to the evidence base since the last review, including expiratory muscle strength training, singing, and computer- and device-driven …

Effects Of Language Status, Community Advice, And Parent Beliefs On Heritage Language Maintenance In The U.S.: A Scoping Review, Jasmine Loeung

University Honors Theses

This scoping review examines the effects of language status, community advice to parents, and parents' beliefs on heritage language maintenance within a U.S. context. A total of 34 articles met the inclusion criteria. Four key themes were identified as follows: (1) status of a language in society affects maintenance, (2) parents' beliefs about the impact of the heritage language affect family language practices, (3) community advice impacts parents' beliefs and practices, (4) other factors affecting maintenance of the heritage language across generations. Overall, HL maintenance was observed as a dynamic relationship between a variety of factors, with individuals as well …

Sound-Category Learning And Memory Skills In Neurotypical Adults And Adults With Language-Learning Disabilities, Allison Fulcher

University Honors Theses

This study evaluates the impact of memory skills (procedural, declarative, and working) and sound discrimination abilities, on the ability of adults with and without Language Learning Disability (LLD) to learn two sound-category structures, one designed to be learned implicitly and the other designed to be learned explicitly. This design tests a theorized etiology for LLD, the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH), which posits that LLD is caused by selective impairments to procedural memory and implicit learning. It also serves to evaluate factors and conditions that contribute to success in second-language learning for adults, who are less neurologically suited to the task …

The Intersectionality Of Stuttering And Aging, Mary Elizabeth Herring

University Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore relationships between stuttering and aging so that speech-language pathologists can be informed about the intersectionality of these identities.

Three adult men who stutter, all over the age of 65, were interviewed in semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were analyzed with in-vivo coding to find codes and themes between participants. From the interviews, 20 categories were identified. These categories were then funneled into four overarching themes: 1) Personal factors impacted by stuttering, 2) Stuttering perspectives across the lifespan, 3) Stuttering therapy experiences, and 4) Covert stuttering.

This study shows that attitudes, perspectives, and experiences …

A Systematic Review Of Research On Augmentative And Alternative Communication Brain-Computer Interface Systems For Individuals With Disabilities., Betts Peters, Brandon Eddy, Deirdre Galvin-Mclaughlin, Gail Betz, Barry Oken, Melanie Fried-Oken

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Augmentative and alternative communication brain-computer interface (AAC-BCI) systems are intended to offer communication access to people with severe speech and physical impairment (SSPI) without requiring volitional movement. As the field moves toward clinical implementation of AAC-BCI systems, research involving participants with SSPI is essential. Research has demonstrated variability in AAC-BCI system performance across users, and mixed results for comparisons of performance for users with and without disabilities. The aims of this systematic review were to (1) describe study, system, and participant characteristics reported in BCI research, (2) summarize the communication task performance of participants with disabilities using AAC-BCI systems, and …

Implicit Learning In Preschool Children With And Without Developmental Language Disorder, Abigail E. Tolomei

University Honors Theses

The study below was designed to compare implicit learning in fifty-two preschool-aged children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD) to test the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH). The PDH claims that procedural memory, the basis of implicit learning, is the main impairment in DLD. Using a computer-based program to conduct sound-meaning-mapping tasks, we asked children to select one of two images according to the corresponding sound they heard. After all the participants were tested, an additional cue was found in the experiment that impacted the data. Instead of the children attuning to the sounds to depict the correct answer, the …

The Effects Of Language Proficiency On Narrative Macrostructure In Spanish-English Bilinguals, Jenny Magallon

Dissertations and Theses

Bilingual children of the same age may have different narrative skills depending on the quantity and quality of their experiences in the two languages. Thus, children's storytelling skills can vary depending on children's oral proficiency in each language. The present study examined the effects of oral proficiency on story structure in forty 5- to 7-year-old Spanish-English speaking children using Spanish and English samples from story retelling tasks. Language proficiency was measured as continuum of performance using the Spanish-English Language Proficiency Scale (SELPS; Smyk et al., 2013). To estimate the effects of Spanish and English proficiency on story structure, linear regressions …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication Use, Service Delivery Experiences, And Communicative Participation For People With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Betts Peters

Dissertations and Theses

People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) often experience changes to their speech, and may use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices and techniques to maintain the ability to communicate. The use of AAC may facilitate the participation of people with ALS in various life situations involving communication. There is limited data in the literature about the AAC approaches currently used by people with ALS, the professional services they receive to support communication, or the effects of AAC on their communicative participation. This dissertation involved a nationwide online survey of people with ALS, and comprises three papers intended to add to …

Intervention Approaches For Childhood Apraxia Of Speech: An Overview Of Prevailing Treatment Methods, Toni Lewis

University Honors Theses

This paper aims to describe the theory and methods of select intervention approaches for childhood apraxia of speech so readers may better understand current treatment techniques. Covered in this paper are Rapid Syllable Transitions (ReST), Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC), Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT), as well as supplemental techniques such as augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and ultrasound biofeedback. Also covered briefly are instances of CAS treatment in languages other than English.

Factors Impacting Heritage Language Maintenance In Children, Helena Sai

Student Research Symposium

This review article aims to examine families’ beliefs and strategies regarding heritage language maintenance in the US. Language status, caregiver beliefs, and community factors are explored in relation to language maintenance across generations. The broader context in which parents make decisions about family language policies were investigated through the following research questions:

1. What is the nature of the relationship between a heritage language’s language status in society and language maintenance across generations?

2. How do parents’ beliefs about the impact of heritage language on academic, social, and career success influence their decision to pass this language to their children?

3. To what …

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Investigation Of The Externship Selection Process Across Asha-Accredited Speech Language Pathology Programs, Teale Niles, Lindsey Schwab, Brandon Eddy

Student Research Symposium

Graduate students in speech-language pathology (SLP) must complete 400 clinical clock hours during graduate training, the majority of which frequently come from off-campus externship experiences. Graduate students are matched to externship sites by their program. No studies to date have systematically documented how graduate programs in speech-language pathology select students for externship experiences nor the constraints involved in the externship process (e.g., academic schedule). The goal of this study is to survey ASHA accredited SLP programs to describe the current procedures being used to place students at externship sites and the roles and perspectives of the externship coordinators. Externship coordinators …

Implicit Learning In Preschoolers With Developmental Language Disorder, Crystal L. Cairns, Sam Ward, Emma Duran, Molly Franz, Carolyn Quam

Student Research Symposium

We compared implicit learning in preschoolers with and without developmental language disorder (DLD), to test the procedural deficit hypothesis (PDH), which proposes that implicit learning is the core impairment in DLD. During the first experiment we tested 26 preschoolers with typical language development (TLD) and 26 preschoolers with DLD. Eligibility was determined through standardized assessment. We predicted children with DLD would show impairments in a test of implicit learning.

Using computer-based tasks, participants received training on sound discrimination in two dimensions: duration and pitch.They were tested on their ability to accurately categorize these two dimensions by mapping sounds to meaning. …

Augmentative And Alternative Communication Course Design And Features: An Analysis Of Course Syllabi And Calendars, Celine Goodbody, Hosanna Broderick, Brandon Eddy

Student Research Symposium

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is an area of clinical practice that supplements or compensates for impairments in speech-language production and/or comprehension (ASHA, n.d.). A survey study by Johnson and Prebor (2019) found 86% of graduate speech-language pathology (SLP) programs offered an AAC course, though half (49%) suggested their students were underprepared to provide AAC services. High-quality graduate training, including AAC coursework, has been suggested as a solution to prepare clinicians to provide AAC services. Recently, Sauerwein and Burris (2021) surveyed AAC course instructors at accredited SLP graduate programs to analyze AAC course design features. Sixty-four (24.2%) programs responded to …

Perspectives Of Special Educators And Paraprofessionals On Person-Centered Planning Tools For People Who Use Aac, Samantha K. Stidham, Brandon Eddy, Andryce Andres

Student Research Symposium

Person-centered planning (PCP) is an intervention approach for people experiencing disability. This often results in a document outlining the individual’s preferences in their care, life goals, and transitions. Some people with disabilities communicate using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), which supplements or compensates for impairments in speech and language production often involving the use of external communication tools. Current PCP tools may not fulfill the needs of people who use AAC (PWUAAC) due to limited focus on supporting communication. No PCP tools yet exist specifically designed for PWUAAC. The purpose of this study was to inform the design of a …

Patterns Of And Experiences With Dysphagia In People With Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (Heds) With Or Without Dysautonomia, Karyssa A. Stonick, Deanna Britton Dr., Emily Goble, Alison Wong, Alena Guggenheim Dr., Donna Graville

Student Research Symposium

Ehlers Danlos Syndromes (EDS) are collagen-based hereditary connective tissue disorders characterized by decreased tissue integrity. Historically, the musculoskeletal and dermatological manifestations have been emphasized. However, EDS is associated with symptoms and conditions affecting nearly all body systems, including swallowing (dysphagia). A Cohort Discovery analysis at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) revealed that 14.9% ± 0.3% of patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis of EDS also have an ICD-10 diagnosis of dysphagia in their medical record. Despite only one article in the current literature, the prevalence of dysphagia in EDS is not insignificant and warrants further investigation. Our long-term hypothesis is …

Respiratory Function In Transgender And Gender Diverse Individuals On Testosterone Therapy: A Comparative Study, Jillian River R. Browy, Alicia Heitzman, Deanna Britton, Jeff Conn, Karen Drake, Aaron Ziegler

Student Research Symposium

Introduction: The primary goal of this pilot study was to examine the impact of testosterone therapy, as part of medical treatment to align gender identity, on measures of respiration and voice.

Methods: Participants consisted of a group of transgender and gender-diverse individuals, assigned female at birth, who had been taking testosterone for at least one year and a control group of age- and race-matched peers, also assigned female at birth, who had never taken testosterone. Data were collected on the primary outcomes of respiratory volume and strength, reflected by measures of forced vital capacity (FVC), maximum inspiratory pressure (MIP), and …

Qualitative Research Approaches: Descriptive Phenomenology In The Healthcare Field, Emily Goble, Karyssa Stonick, Alison Wong, Deanna Britton

Student Research Symposium

Qualitative research analyzes psychosocial aspects of the world in an effort to synthesize and understand lived experiences. It is a powerful tool for collecting rich data to explore and build theory in new areas of research with limited existing theory. This oral presentation will share an overview of commonly used qualitative research approaches and their applications with a focus on descriptive phenomenology for patient-centered healthcare research. Developed as part of a student-led research team looking into experiences of dysphagia among individuals with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, this project will justify why we selected a descriptive phenomenological approach for this project, provide a …

Developing Therapeutic Alliance Through Improvisation: A State-Of-The-Art Review For The Speech-Language Pathologist, Ryan Depauw

Student Research Symposium

Background: With the needs of patients in modern healthcare becoming increasingly complex, providers may benefit from using adaptive skills to develop therapeutic alliance in patient-centered care. This review examined the potential application and benefit of theatrical improvisational skills in healthcare generally and in the allied health profession of speech-language pathology specifically.

Methods: A literature search was completed across 6 databases. Search terms included “clinical improvisation,” “medical improvisation,” and “applied improvisation.” Searches were limited to journal articles published in English from November 2011 through November 2021. Articles included for full review were of original research and focused on applied …

Data From: A Protracted Developmental Trajectory For English-Learning Children’S Detection Of Consonant Mispronunciations In Newly Learned Words, Carolyn Quam, Daniel Swingley

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Datasets

Children are adept at learning their language’s speech-sound categories, but just how these categories function in their developing lexicon has not been mapped out in detail. Here, we addressed whether, in a language-guided looking procedure, two-year-olds would respond to a mispronunciation of the voicing of the initial consonant of a newly learned word. First, to provide a baseline of mature native-speaker performance, adults were taught a new word under training conditions of low prosodic variability. In a second experiment, 24- and 30-month-olds were taught a new word under training conditions of high or low prosodic variability. Children and adults showed …

Perceptions And Experiences Of Indian And Indian-American Multilingual And Multicultural Adults Who Stutter, Bhavani Ganesh

University Honors Theses

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the intersectional identities of Indian and Indian American people who stutter and explore how their multicultural and/or multilingual identities contribute to their self-perceptions and experiences of disability.

Method: Five Indian or Indian American adults (all male) who stuttered participated in a semi-structured interview via Zoom. Interview transcripts were analyzed using a phenomenological qualitative research methods process. The qualitative research process included in-vivo coding, identification of categories, and emergence of themes.

Results: Participants reported both unique and shared experiences related to their stuttering and their multicultural and multilingual backgrounds. Four major themes …

Ancillary Data For Refining Computer Adaptive Algorithms For The Assessment Of Anomia, Emily Kathryn Tudorache

Dissertations and Theses

Computer adaptive testing formats, based in item response theory (IRT), are becoming an increasingly popular approach to testing in healthcare because they offer numerous psychometric and practical advantages to assessment when compared to static tests that rely on classical test theory. Fergadiotis and colleagues (2015) have developed computer adaptive versions of the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT) short-forms, which have demonstrated acceptable precision and standard error of measurement when compared to the static short-forms and original full-length assessment. This study sought to use synthetic data simulations using the catIrt R package (Nydik, 2014) to investigate possible advantages of the use of …

Happy 😊, Sad 😥Or Pizza 🍕: A Review Of Emoji Effects On Reading Times And Their Relation To Mood, Fetheya Alattar

University Honors Theses

With recent advancements in technology, emoji are continuously changing the way that people communicate and process language. Their use continues to evolve as a mechanism to counter the loss of the rich nonverbal cues of face-to-face communication. Subsequently, the need for research examining how emoji are processed and how they affect language and communication has become more important. This research specifically examines the scholarship on emoji effects on sentence reading times (RT) and how this relates to mood. Results on the effects of emoji on sentence RT are mixed. In some instances, emoji slowed RT and in others, they sped …

Links Between Sound-Category Learning & Memory Skills In Neurotypical & Language-Learning-Disabled Adults, Katharine Ross, Mario Rene Jimenez-Cruz

Student Research Symposium

This study will examine how memory systems are intertwined with language learning by assessing participants’ different memory systems and relating memory skills to the ability to learn and categorize unfamiliar sounds.

Based upon similar work (Maddox, Ing, & Lauritzen, 2006), we hypothesize that the data will show a link between procedural memory and implicit sound categorization, and between declarative memory and explicit sound categorization. Additionally, based on the predictions of the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (Lum, Conti-Ramsden, Page, & Ullman, 2012), we believe adults with LI will (1) show a weak connection between procedural memory and implicit sound categorization accuracy; (2) …

Self-Perception Of Stuttering Frequency Across The Lifespan: A Pilot Study, Natalia C. Newton

University Honors Theses

Purpose: The purpose of the current pilot study is to analyze the accuracy of self-rating of stuttering frequency as compared to clinician calculations of stuttering frequency in order to further examine possible factors that affect the accuracy of a stutterer’s self-rating of their overt stuttering.

Method: Three participants (i.e., one child, one teen, one adult) self-rated their perceptions of their stuttering frequency on a scale of 1-5 after three telepractice speech therapy sessions. Each of the telepractice therapy sessions were recorded and reviewed asynchronously after the session to conduct a disfluency count with a 300-word sample and calculate the percentage …

Explicit Learning Of Auditory Categories In Preschoolers With And Without Developmental Language Disorder, Lauren Casey

University Honors Theses

This study a part of a broader study including Quam et al. (2020) and Yu (2020) with the aim of understanding how children with and without developmental language disorder learn language. With a better understanding of the underlying learning mechanisms affected in DLD, better interventions can be implemented. The current study investigates explicit language learning in preschoolers with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). This was done by observing sound discrimination and explicit sound-meaning mapping. One child with DLD and 29 children with typical language development (TLD) participated in this study. Inclusion in each group was determined by a hearing …

The Utility Of Multiplex Closeness Centrality For Predicting Item Difficulty Parameters In Anomia Tests, Khanh L. Nguyen

University Honors Theses

Background: Confrontation naming tests for the assessment of aphasia are perhaps the most commonly used tests in aphasiology. Recently, such tests have been modeled using item response theory approaches. Despite their advantages, item response theory models require large sample sizes for parameter estimation that are often unrealistic when working with clinical populations. As an alternative approach, Fergadiotis, Kellough & Hula (2015) explored automatic item calibration by regressing item difficulty parameters on word length, age of acquisition (AOA), and lexical frequency as quantified by the Log10CD index. Despite the high predictive utility that they achieved, the model’s performance was far from …

Infants’ Discrimination Of Consonant Contrasts In The Presence And Absence Of Talker Variability, Carolyn Quam, Lauren Clough, Sara Knight, Louann Gerken

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

To learn speech‐sound categories, infants must identify the acoustic dimensions that differentiate categories and selectively attend to them as opposed to irrelevant dimensions. Variability on irrelevant acoustic dimensions can aid formation of robust categories in infants through adults in tasks such as word learning (e.g., Rost and McMurray, 2009) or speech‐sound learning (e.g., Lively et al., 1993). At the same time, variability sometimes overwhelms learners, interfering with learning and processing. Two prior studies (Kuhl & Miller, 1982; Jusczyk, Pisoni, & Mullennix, 1992) found that irrelevant variability sometimes impaired early sound discrimination. We asked whether variability would impair or facilitate discrimination …

Sound Discrimination And Explicit Mapping Of Sounds To Meanings In Preschoolers With And Without Developmental Language Disorder, Carolyn Quam, Holly Cardinal, Celeste Gallegos, Todd Bodner

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose: To investigate links between sound discrimination and explicit sound-meaning mapping by preschoolers with and without developmental language disorder (DLD).

Method: We tested 26 children with DLD and 26 age- and gender-matched peers with typical language development (TLD). Inclusion was determined via results of standardised assessments of language and cognitive skills and a hearing screening. Children completed two computerised tasks designed to assess pitch and duration discrimination and explicit mapping of pitch- and duration-contrasting sounds to objects.

Result: Children with TLD more successfully mapped pitch categories to meanings than children with DLD. Children with TLD also showed significantly better overall …

Feeding Outcomes In Children With Craniofacial Anomalies, Meghan R. Hansen, Shannon M. Theis, Deanna Britton

Student Research Symposium

Feeding disorders in children with craniofacial anomalies, specifically cleft lip and/or palate, have been documented in the literature as a source of parental stress and can lead to difficulties with the early parent-infant bonding process, as well other medical co-morbidities including poor growth, impairment to the respiratory and developmental health of the child, and increased hospitalizations (Miller, 2011). However, there is a dearth of information in the literature regarding atypical craniofacial anomalies and early feeding difficulties. By utilizing an interdisciplinary team approach, we present a series of three case studies of early feeding difficulties in children with varying degrees of …