Speech Pathology and Audiology Commons^™

Characterizing And Predicting Outcomes Of Communication Delays In Infants And Toddlers: Implications For Clinical Practice, Rhea Paul, Forma P. Roth

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Purpose: This article focuses on using currently available data to assist speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in making decisions regarding a child's eligibility and considerations for recommended "dosage" of early intervention (El) services. Method: Literature describing the characteristics of infants and toddlers who are likely recipients of El services was reviewed. Results: Current literature provides information that can be used to inform clinical decisions for infants and toddlers with established medical conditions, as well as those with risk factors, for oral language, communication, and subsequent literacy disabilities. This information is summarized. Conclusion: Extant literature suggests that El makes a critical difference in …

Sally J. Rogers And Geraldine Dawson: Review Of Early Start Denver Model For Young Children With Autism: Promoting Language, Learning And Engagement (Book Review), Rhea Paul

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Book review by Rhea Paul:

Rogers, Sally R. and Geraldine Dawson. Early Start Denver Model for Young Children with Autism: Promoting Language, Learning and Engagement. New York: Guilford Press, 2010. 9781606236321; 9781606234914 (pbk.)

Augmentative And Alternative Communication Systems In The Classroom, Helen Angela Mezzomo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Augmentative-alternative communication (AAC) systems are used to give voice to individuals who are nonverbal. As AAC systems become more complex and prevalent in the classroom expectations of school-based professionals expand. However, the roles of those expected to support AAC systems, primarily teachers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs), are not clearly defined. Without clearly defined roles, professionals may not provide needed support to students who use AAC. Dewey's theory of community suggests that role confusion leads to insufficient and ineffective services. The purpose of this cross-sectional quantitative study was to determine how teachers and SLPs view their roles in supporting AAC. The …

Feasibility Of Group Voice Therapy For Individuals With Parkinson’S Disease, Jeff Searl, Kristel Wilson, Karen Haring, Angela M. Dietsch, Kelly E. Lyons, Rajesh Pahwa

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: The primary purpose was to demonstrate the feasibility of executing treatment tasks focused on increasing loudness in a group format for individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). A second purpose was to report preliminary pre-to-post treatment outcomes for individuals with PD immediately after they complete the group program. Methods: The group intervention is described. Fifteen adults with PD who participated in the group and three clinicians leading the group provided feedback about the execution of the intervention. The participants also provided voice samples and self-ratings of voice handicap once before completing the 8-week voice group and once immediately after completing …

Age Effect On The Gaze Stabilization Test, Julie A. Honaker

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Impairments of the vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR) lead to a decline in visual acuity during head movements. Dynamic visual acuity (DVA) testing is a sensitive assessment tool for detecting VOR impairments. DVA evaluates accuracy of visual acuity during fixed velocity head movements. In contrast, the Gaze Stabilization test (GST) is a new functional evaluation of the VOR that identifies a person’s maximum head velocity (in degrees per second) a person can maintain with stable vision of a target (i.e. optotype). The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of age on the GST in participants without vestibular disease. The …

Chronic Subjective Dizziness (Csd) Vs. Conversion Disorder: Discussion Of Clinical Findings And Rehabilitation., Julie A. Honaker, Jane M. Gilbert, Jeffrey P. Staab

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

PURPOSE: Audiologists frequently encounter patients who complain of chronic dizziness or imbalance, in the absence of active vestibular or neurological deficits. Knowledge about conditions that cause this clinical presentation will allow audiologists to make important contributions to accurate diagnosis and effective management of these patients. This article reviews two such conditions, chronic subjective dizziness (CSD) and conversion disorder. METHOD: A case of CSD and another of conversion disorder are presented with a literature review of their clinical presentations, key diagnostic features, and treatment strategies. The role of the audiologist in assessing patients with these conditions and facilitating appropriate treatment referrals …

Modified Head Shake Computerized Dynamic Posturography, Julie A. Honaker, Connie M. Converse, Neil T. Shepard

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

PURPOSE: Recent research on head shake posturography has demonstrated a modest increase in sensitivity to identifying peripheral vestibular system asymmetry when horizontal head movements were added to portions of the standard Sensory Organization Test (SOT) battery. However, limitations with respect to the head shake protocol were outlined, and usable data for assessing performance could not be established. The purpose of this study was to test a change in protocol for use of head shake SOT to address the noted limitations.
METHOD: Forty participants ranging in age from 20 to 79 years with no history of dizziness completed Conditions 2 and …

Talk To Me: Issues In Acquiring Spoken Language For Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Rhea Paul

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Speech-language pathologists play a critical role in the treatment of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) because communication deficits are a primary component of both the diagnostic criteria and the focus of educational services for children with these conditions. Children with ASD almost always are delayed in speech acquisition (Tager-Flusberg, Paul, & Lord, 2005), as well as in other areas of communication. Lack of speech is often the most obvious symptom and greatest cause for concern of parents of toddlers who are eventually diagnosed with ASD, even though closer observation usually reveals additional problems.

Defining Spoken Language Benchmarks And Selecting Measures Of Expressive Language Development For Young Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Helen Tager-Flusberg, Sally Rogers, Judith Cooper, Rebecca Landa, Catherine Lord, Rhea Paul, Mabel Rice, Carol Stoel-Gammon, Amy Wetherby, Paul Yoder

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Purpose: The aims of this article are twofold: (a) to offer a set of recommended measures that can be used for evaluating the efficacy of interventions that target spoken language acquisition as part of treatment research studies or for use in applied settings and (b) to propose and define a common terminology for describing levels of spoken language ability in the expressive modality and to set benchmarks for determining a child's language level in order to establish a framework for comparing outcomes across intervention studies.
Method: The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders assembled a group of researchers …

Fukuda Stepping Test: Sensitivity And Specificity, Julie A. Honaker, Neil T. Shepard

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Background: A vestibulospinal test known as the Fukuda Stepping Test (FST) has been suggested to be a measure of asymmetrical labyrinthine function. However, an extensive review of the performance of this test to identify a peripheral vestibular lesion has not been reported.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the standard FST and a head shaking variation for identification of a peripheral vestibular system lesion.
Research Design: In this retrospective review, we compared performance on the FST with and without a head shaking component to Electronystagmography (ENG) caloric irrigation unilateral weakness results.
Study …

Adaptive Behavior In Autism And Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified: Microanalysis Of Scores On The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Rhea Paul, Stephanie Miles, Domenic Cicchetti, Sara Sparrow, Ami Klin, Fred Volkmar, Megan Coflin, Shelley Booker

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study is to provide a microanalysis of differences in adaptive functioning seen between well-matched groups of school-aged children with autism and those diagnosed as having Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, all of whom functioned in the mild to moderate range of intellectual impairment. Findings indicate that the major area of difference between children with autism and those with Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, was expressive communication; specifically, the use of elaborations in syntax and morphology and in pragmatic use of language to convey and to seek information in discourse. Linear discriminant function analysis revealed that scores …

Naturalistic Speech And Language Remediation In The Preschool Population, Karen L. Nix

Honors Theses

Views of language learning have shifted from passive, behavioristic models in the l 960's to contemporary models which view the child as an active learner (Nelson, 1995). During the same time period, laws such as PL 94-142 and PL 99-457 were passed, which mandated that special services be provided to preschool children and their families and that services be provided in a Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) (Tiegerman-Farber, 1995). Naturalistic speech and language remediation is one option that meets the LRE for the preschool population. A mail-out survey of 200 Arkansas Speech-Language Pathologists was utilized in researching the actual and ideal …

Attention Effects On Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions With Contralateral Speech Stimuli, Genaya Kae Timpe

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of attending to a speech stimulus on the amplitude of the distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE). The distortion product otoacoustic emission is a measurement of the activity of the inner ear, specifically the outer hair cells in the ear. The activity of the outer hair cells depends upon the auditory nervous system; when it is stimulated, the outer hair cell activity is modified. Normal outer hair cells will create a large DPOAE amplitude. When a stimulus is presented to the opposite ear, the auditory nervous system acts upon the …

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 …

An Age Related Feature Analysis Of The Autocom, Nancy Jo Blair

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The current research was designed to outline the Autocom features, develop teaching sequences which incorporated these features and determine the ability of prefirst and third grade subjects to operate the features for functional conmunication. The population was comprised of 20 physically and intellectually normal children-- 10 prefirst graders and 10 third graders. The subjects were met with individually at the La Sierra Hearing, Speech and Language Center for one or two sessions, for approximately 45 to 60 minutes per session.

Using teaching sequences developed by the investigator, the subjects were taught to operate each feature of the Autocom. At specific …

An Experimental Study To Determine The Effect Of Creative Dramatics Upon A Public School Speech Therapy Program, Sharon Lee Balyeat

All Master's Theses

The intent of the study was to determine the effect of creative dramatics upon the attitudes and language skills of a group of children participating in a public school speech correction program.

The Experimental Use Of Operant Procedures With Language Delayed Children, Scott W. Nielsen

All Master's Theses

It was the purpose of this study: (1) To compare the amount of vocalization produced by each child before the experiment with the amount of vocalization during and after the application of operant conditioning techniques. (2) To compare the variations in the vocalization produced by the children. (3) To explore the possibility of shaping those vocalizations into meaningful words. The study sought to verify the following statement: Utilization of operant conditioning principles will increase the amount and variety of vocalization in language delayed children.