Speech and Hearing Science Commons^™

Feesability Of Laryngeal Endoscopy Simulation Labs In Student Training: A Scoping Review, Anna Thut

Student Research Symposium

Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES) involves passing a flexible endoscope through the nose and down the throat to provide a detailed view of the throat, airway, and vocal folds. With the scope in place, people can eat and drink, allowing the clinician to evaluate for safe swallowing. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) use FEES for diagnostic evaluation and to gauge therapy progress and effectiveness. Simulation training on a low or high-fidelity model may provide a bridge for SLP graduate students to gain competency before being introduced to FEES in a clinical setting. This review aims to gather evidence on the use …

Impact Of Testosterone Therapy On Voices In Trans-Masculine People: A Scoping Review, Samuel E. Hedine, Jeff Conn, Deanna Britton

Student Research Symposium

Treatment of trans people by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) dates back to at least the 1980s. However, the majority of early research on the voices of trans people focused on trans-women. More recently, the field of speech-language pathology has garnered more interest in the effects of testosterone therapy in trans-masculine individuals. The goal of this project is to review current research, and compile the known effects of testosterone therapy in the trans-masculine population on common acoustic indices of voice production, including fundamental frequency (pitch), decibels/sound pressure level (dB SPL; loudness) and cepstral peak prominence (voice quality). A scoping literature search was …

Exploring Speech Experiences, Cpib Scores, And Aac Assessment Experiences Of Autistic Aac Users With Intermittent, Unreliable, Insufficient, And/Or Expensive Speech, Karina Rayl, Pang Lee Herr, Brandon Eddy, Amy Donaldson, Stephanie Fuller, Alyssa Zisk

Student Research Symposium

There is growing evidence from the perspectives of speaking autistic people that augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) supports their self-expression and communicative agency. Despite the evidence supporting the communication effectiveness of AAC, autistic adults have reported that professionals often prioritized speech as the ideal communicative method rather than offering AAC as a communication option. This study will investigate autistic adults’ AAC assessment experiences and explore whether a modified version of the Communication Participation Item Bank (CPIB) self-rating questionnaire could be an effective tool to document the internal states of intermittent, unreliable, insufficient, and/or expensive speech. Surveys will be distributed to …

Respiratory-Swallowing Coordination In Motor Neuron Disease: A Scoping Review, Mariam Z. Mansoor

Student Research Symposium

Respiratory-swallowing coordination (RSC) is essential for providing efficient breathing and optimal swallowing function. Most commonly used methods of measuring RSC include nasal thermistry, and respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP) to determine direction and durations of airflow. Outcome measures include swallow apnea duration (SAD) and respiratory phase pattern (RPP), i.e., direction of airflow pre- and post-SAD. The goal of the current project was to conduct a scoping literature review of RSC, focusing on the motor neuron disease (MND) population, including people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A multi-engine literature search was conducted in 2023-24 via PubMed and Google Scholar. No limitations were …

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 …

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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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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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) …

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 …

Cross-Language Transfer In Intervention With Bilingual Adults Who Stutter: Two Case Studies, Marlen Castellanos, Hillary Landers, Megann Mcgill

Student Research Symposium

The purposes of this study are 1) to examine the effectiveness of bilingual stuttering intervention in two sequential Spanish-English bilingual individuals who stutter 2) to evaluate the degree of cross-language transfer in an AB-single-subject design model of intervention.

An Ocean Of Brain Waves: Analyzing Methods To Find Erp Signals In The Noise, Andrea Hamblen, Mallary Owen, Lindsay Robb, Susan Wiggins, Sarah Key-Delyria

Student Research Symposium

Questions:
Will the N400 ERP be observed when participants read word pairs that are either related (semantically, causally, hierarchically, or associatively) or unrelated?

Will a replication of a study using word pairs with varying degrees of relatedness produce similar results to the model study in terms of N400 latency and amplitude?

Can results from a robust, easily-recognizable ERP be used to validate methods for the discovery of more subtle ERP’s?

Hypotheses:

It is expected that our results will mirror the findings of our model study, revealing significant negative-going neural activity between 200 and 500ms after seeing the stimulus. We anticipate …

Attrition Effects In Mandarin-English Bilinguals Of Varying Proficiency, Sarah Elkinton, Jared Forman, Diana Yuen, Carolyn Quam

Student Research Symposium

Previous research has shown that English dominance caused an attrition effect in tone processing in native Mandarin speakers (Quam & Creel, 2017). There were two explanations offered, either tones are more prone to attrition because of their unique mental representation, or English dominant bilinguals are able to recruit English perceptual categories to process the Mandarin vowels. This research project is a verification and expansion of that research investigating how dominance in English, a non-tonal language, impacts lexical tonal processing in Mandarin for Mandarin-English bilinguals. This research project is testing the robustness of this effect in two ways. The first is …

Socialsibs: The Effects Of A Hybrid Intervention On The Core Social Communicative Behaviors Of Children With Asd, Marissa Montejano

Student Research Symposium

Purpose/Introduction
Social communication challenges are a central feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD; APA, 2013). Social communication skills are often a key focus of intervention; however, generalization of skills to natural contexts, particularly peer relationships is a challenge for many children on the spectrum (Ferraioli & Harris, 2011; Schreiber, 2011; Wang & Spillane, 2009).

Socialsibs is a hybrid intervention that targets social interaction, communication, and reciprocity using a combination of video modeling and sibling-mediation within a naturalistic behavioral framework. The intervention was examined within a waitlist control design study with children with ASD and their neurotypical siblings. The current poster …

Bilingual Adults With Tbi And Abi: Current State Of Portland Metro Slp Assessment Resources, Sarah Shellard, Sarah Key-Delyria

Student Research Symposium

This study aims to identify the extent and nature of available resources in inpatient, outpatient, and rehabilitation settings for speech-language assessment and treatment in Spanish-speaking adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and acquired brain injury (ABI) in the Portland Metro area. Identification of lack of resources could be used for future improvements in resources. To investigate this, a web-based survey was answered by 25 participants via Qualtrics. Participants were speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the Portland metro area who have treated bilingual / multilingual clients in the past 1-2 years.

Results are presented descriptively to answer four research questions: (1) Have …

Utility Of Spirometry As A Measurement Tool To Evaluate Breathing And Swallowing Coordination (Bsc), Aamna Malik, Jessica Thurman, Deanna Britton, Andrew Demetrius Palmer, Donna Jensen Graville

Student Research Symposium

Breathing swallowing coordination (BSC) is commonly evaluated using nasal thermistry and respiratory inductance plethysmography. In this study, BSC will be evaluated via spirometry in healthy adults. Spirometry may yield additional useful information regarding BSC in adults with neurodegenerative diseases.

Nonword Reading In Children Who Do And Do Not Stutter, Bailey Broxson, Laura Qualls, Tram Nguyen

Student Research Symposium

Stuttering is a multifactorial disorder characterized by disruptions in the forward flow of speech (ASHA). Previous research has demonstrated that children and adults who stutter have phonological working memory systems that are less efficient and accurate than children and adults who do not stutter. This difference in phonological working memory plays a key role in the production of stuttered speech. Anecdotally, speech-language pathologists who work with children who stutter report that three clients also demonstrate difficulty decoding novel works during reading tasks. To date, the link between phonological working memory, stuttered speech, and reading have not been explored. The purpose …