Digital Commons Network^™

Facilitating Independent Communication For An Adult With Severe, Nonfluent Aphasia Using A Voice Output Communication Aid, Jane Mary Stayer

Dissertations and Theses

Aphasia is an acquired general impairment of the language processes resulting from brain damage that is frequently caused by cerebrovascular accidents (CVAs). Persons with aphasia have a history of retaining important communication competencies that have the potential for helping them succeed in using augmented communication systems. Using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems by adults with aphasia has been studied, but few studies have reported successfully using AAC systems in rehabilitating adults with aphasia. New advanced technologies including the availability of devices that talk, store a lot of information, and are relatively small can give AAC the potential to affect …

The R-Stick Appliance As A Device To Facilitate The Phoneme /R/, Rosemary Leblanc

Dissertations and Theses

One of the most common articulation errors made by children is on the phoneme Ir I. Treatment techniques for this sound have varied and have included the stimulus approach (Van Riper, 1972), phonetic placement techniques (Scripture, 1923), the sensory-motor approach (McDonald, 1964), the motokinesthetics approach (Young & Hawk, 1938), and sequential programming approach (Shriberg, 1975; Wood, 1988), to name a few. An integral part of many of these treatment methods is the use of the auditory stimulation. An innovative technique using a prosthetic device to facilitate the production of Ir I was used by Leonti, Blakeley, and Louis (1975), in …

Electrophoretic Studies Of Ion Adsorption To Sarcoplasmic Reticulum And Phosphatidylcholine Membranes, Andreas Schilling

Dissertations and Theses

In this study, electrophoretic mobilities of native and two types of trypsin digested sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles have been determined by microelectrophoresis using a Doppler Electrophoretic Light Scattering Analyzer to investigate the influence of hydrodynamic drag, caused by the Ca2⁺, Mg2⁺ -ATPase protruding from the surface of native sarcoplasmic reticulum vesicles. After the prolonged digestion (protein:trypsin ratio of 20 for 3 hours at 25°C), the ATPase was cleaved and removed from the sarcoplasmic reticulum membrane as shown with SDS gel electrophoresis and an ATPase activity assay. Ionic strength and pH dependence of mobility showed a nearly pH independent …

Rain, Eco-Net

RAIN: Journal of Appropriate Technology

Volume 14, Number 4

Inside: Car Co-ops; Grassroots Bolivia; Berlin's Eco-Villages; Christopher Alexander's Latest

RAIN began in October 1974 as a publication of ECO-NET, an environmental education network funded by the Hill Foundation and an Environmental Education grant. Its office was based in the Environmental Education Center at Portland State University. With a focus on the Pacific Northwest, particularly Oregon, RAIN originally described itself as a “bulletin board” with an “emphasis on environmental/energy related and communications kinds of information” and interested in “the evolutionary possibilities of inter-disciplinary connections.”

The Use Of Faceplate Assemblies As Facsimiles Of Custom Hearing Instruments, James A. Fenwick

Dissertations and Theses

Custom-designed hearing instruments comprise the majority of those dispensed in the United States today. Because of their custom nature, there has been no means of evaluating them until they have been completed. There would be advantages to evaluating custom instruments prior to their completion. This study investigates a means of evaluating custom instruments prior to their final assembly into the customized shell. This is done by having the subject listen to the circuitry of the instrument while it is still mounted on the faceplate, which is accomplished by coupling the faceplate assembly to the subject's ear with foam earplug. To …

A Linguistic Needs Assessment Of A Latino Community, Cybele Marie Higgins

Dissertations and Theses

Latino communities frequently face barriers in the midst of largely English speaking and mostly Anglo-American culture surrounding communities. These surrounding communities often may be somewhat resistant to adjusting to their changing populations.

This case study is a linguistic needs assessment of a Latino community in a small city and neighboring town in the Northwest. Discussed are experiences, needs, and opinions of thirty Latina mother participants in regards to living in this community. Participants, all of whom were monolingual Spanish or limited English proficiency recent immigrants, were recruited through a social service agency serving low income Latinos.

The study used observation, …

1994 Commencement Program, A. Gary Ames

Commencement Archives 1990-99

The program for the Portland State University Spring Commencement ceremony on June 11, 1994.

A. Gary Ames, communications executive and Portland State alumnus, received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address.

A Comparison Between Trained Ear Estimation And Orthographic Transcription When Measuring Speech Intelligibility Of Young Children, Nancy Kay Sugarman

Dissertations and Theses

When the primary mode of communication is speech, the crucial ingredient for successful communication is intelligible speech. The speech of children with disordered phonologies is often unintelligible. Accurate and reliable measurement of speech with compromised intelligibility is essential if appropriate treatment procedures are to be chosen and implemented. The focus of this investigation was the measurement of speech intelligibility in young children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the subjective method of trained ear estimation and the objective method of orthographic transcription when measuring the speech intelligibility of young speakers with a wide range of …

Conversational Structure In Electronic Mail Exchanges, Linda I. Godson

Dissertations and Theses

Electronic mail has become a widely used medium of communication in academia, government, and business. It is unique as a communication medium because it makes conversations across time, space, and organizational levels possible. The ability of electronic mail to "forward" a message allows for the creation of chains that preserve the entire conversation for each participant. This appears to be a new linguistic form in which the interactive features of spoken conversation are realized using electronically transmitted text.

The purpose of the present study was to determine the extent of the similarities and differences between spoken conversation and electronic mail …

The Use Of Global Issues In A University Esl Classroom: The Students' Perspective, Kelley Denise Fitzpatrick

Dissertations and Theses

There is increasing interest on the part of ESL educators in the inclusion of contemporary, global issues in their classrooms. Theory about content-based ESL, as well as trends in education, generally, lend support to such enthusiasm. However, ESL educators may be erroneously assuming that their interest in this material is shared by their students. Global issues can also be controversial. Their inclusion in the classroom has the potential to create an uncomfortable, and therefore ineffective, learning atmosphere in a multicultural ESL setting. This qualitative case study examined the use of global issues as the content material in a university-based ESL …

A Comparison Of The Cohesion In The Expository Discourse Of The Optimally-Healthy Young-Old And The Optimally-Healthy Oldest-Old, Penni Gay Siemens

Dissertations and Theses

The group of people aged 85 years and older is the fastest growing chronological population on the United States (Neal et al., 1993), and while a considerable amount of research has focused on the language of the elderly (those over 65 years), relatively little study has focused specifically on those aged 85 and older. This study is valuable in that it includes a large sample of optimally healthy people aged 85 and older. This sample of the optimally-healthy oldest-old will help define what changes, if any, are a function of age alone and what changes are clinical (associated with some …

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet June 1994, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The June 1994 Monthly packet includes the June agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held May 1994.

Modeling Music With Grammars: Some Examples From Balinese Kotekan, Janet Tom Cowal

Dissertations and Theses

What is the relationship of music and language? Analogies and comparisons of music and language are plentiful in various types of literature. For researchers in the cognitive sciences, the importance of organization, patterning, and structuring of sounds is a common theme in analyzing both language and music. With the success of generative grammars for languages, a number of researchers have used similar kinds of grammars to describe or model particular aspects of music. In addition, researchers are interested in possible universals in musical grammars. However, while grammars of non-Western musics have been written, most of the work has been based …

The Mediation Of U.S. American Culture In The Esl Classroom, Steven Fredolph Roberts

Dissertations and Theses

The concept of cultural mediation is one that all ESL teachers must deal with as an inherent part of their employment. Yet, relatively little of the current literature has examined how teachers actually perceive this aspect of their work once they have left the teacher preparation program behind. This question provided the main rationale for the present study. The current study, an adaptation of DeFoe (1986), examined the mediation of U.S. American culture in the ESL classroom by means of a written survey of 42 teachers from ten community colleges, both in the Portland/Vancouver metropolitan area and from around the …

Changing Values: A Study Of The Shift In Cultural Values And Perceptions Of U.S. High School Students Following Orientation And Exposure To Russian Culture, Linda Sue Warnock

Dissertations and Theses

When cultural values differ, it is difficult for people not to judge one another's behavior on the basis of their own individual and/or cultural values. Given the profound differences in Russian and American culture, the question of what happens when these two cultures interact comes to mind.

The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship of culture specific orientation, coupled with a two week sojourn in Russia on the sojourners' perceptions of cultural values. The sojourners were high school athletes participating in the first part of a Russian - American Track and Field Exchange.

In order to ascertain …

An Experimental Study Of Scotopic Sensitivity/Irlen Syndrome In Learning Disabled Students, Kathleen Hickam Farber

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the effect on reading performance of a controversial treatment for a dysfunction of visual perception known as Scotopic sensitivity/lrlen Syndrome. The treatment, referred to as spectral modification, involved the use of colored transparent overlays for reading by four elementary school children in their actual school environments.

The diagnostic, prescriptive and remediation procedures used in this study were originally developed by Helen Irlen, a California psychologist and researcher. Irlen conceptualized Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome as a difficulty in visual processing of the printed page when perceived through full spectrum light. Spectral modification techniques were considered controversial in that they …

Meeting Notes 1994-05-12 , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

Perceived Communication During Organizational Change, Paula Blunck

Dissertations and Theses

Organizational change often involves the creation of work teams. This research examines how the creation of self-managed work teams within a particular organization affects perceived communication. Previous research suggests that self-managed teams would socially construct a different view of the organization especially as it relates to power than would those in traditional organizational departments. Attitudes about communication and power within the organization are analyzed in nine self-managed teams and five traditional departments. This analysis is conducted through both qualitative and quantitative means. Group comments and discussions are used in a qualitative analysis. Multidimensional scaling is used to reveal underlying attitudinal …

The Preferred Learning Styles Of Greek Efl Students And Greek Efl Teachers, Debra Jane Gregory

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to identify the preferred learning styles of Greek EFL students and teachers in Greece. The learning styles examined were visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, group and individual. The study was conducted at a private English language school in Piraeus, Greece. Ninety-two Greek EFL students (33 male and 59 female) ranging in age from 13 to 22, and 11 Greek EFL teachers (3 male and 8 female) ranging in age from 22 to 52 constitute the sample. The study used the self-reporting learning style questionnaire that Reid (1987) developed to measure the preferred learning style preferences …

A Study Of The Meaning Found In The References To Space In Selected Plays Of Athol Fugard, Heather Halm Stueve

Dissertations and Theses

The South African playwright Athol Fugard of ten explores the problems which apartheid has created within his society -problems ranging from the racial and societal to the spiritual. He seems to communicate his thoughts about these issues through many direct references to space. This study investigates the meanings these spaces communicate. Four plays were chosen as representative of Fugard's subject matter (covering both white and non-white society) and career: Blood Knot (1963), People are Living There (1970), The Road to Mecca (1985), and My Children, My Africa (1990). Then three steps were carefully followed. First, each reference to space was …

Characteristics Of Marginally Achieving Secondary Students And The Nature Of Their School Experience, Aeylin Summers

Dissertations and Theses

In American high schools, students are sorted into three "tracks" to cluster resources for students of similar abilities and interests. Much is known about the high track student, and especially in the past decade, the low track or "at-risk" student. However, the middle track--or marginally achieving student--has been largely overlooked in the literature. Acknowledged as "lost in the middle" (Judson, 1992), as well as deserving of higher quality of service in their school systems (Powell, Farrar, & Cohen, 1985), marginal achievers-defined here as having a GPA of 1.5-2.5, still maintain a profile of invisibility. Current reform efforts to increase student …

Planning For Academic Success: Survey Of University Professors' Assessments Of Non-Native Students' Language Skill Needs, Carol Bondurant Sloan

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine which language skills university professors believe are most essential for academic success in Portland State University classes. The study can shed light on a question for future research: Do current academic ESL classes at Portland State University teach the necessary skills to help international students maximize their second-language learning potential in university-level courses. Enrollment statistics for 1993 I 94 show 53 percent of the 815 international students declared majors in two programs: the school of Business Administration and the school of Engineering and Applied Science. This study asked 31 instructors from business …

A Comparative Study Of Phonemic Segmentation Skills In First Grade Children With Normal, Disordered, And Slow Expressive Language Development, David J. Andrews

Dissertations and Theses

Children with slow expressive language development often catch up to their normally developing peers in expressive language, but may still exhibit difficulties with metalinguistic skills. Research shows that children who have difficulty with phonemic awareness also have difficulty with reading, which is important for success in school. Speech-language pathologists assist children who have difficulty with expressive oral language and facilitate language development in children who have difficulties with learning metalinguistic skills, such as phonemic awareness.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the phoneme segmentation skills in three groups of children: (a) children with a history of oral …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: A PSU professor sails the central coast of British Columbia studying and photographing pristine rain forests; one of PSU’s first graduates looks back at the challenge of growing up Japanese-American; mass transit, business growth, and a bigger PSU are part of a new plan for south downtown; a PSU grad oversees a unique cultural collection at the New York Public Library; and more.

Faculty Senate Monthly Packet May 1994, Portland State University Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Monthly Packets

The May 1994 Monthly packet includes the May agenda and appendices and the Faculty Senate minutes and attachments from the meeting held April 1994.

A User-Level Process Package For Concurrent Computing, Ravi Konuru, Steve Otto, Jonathan Walpole, Robert Prouty, Jeremy Casas

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

A lightweight user-level process(ULP) package for parallel computing is described. Each ULP has its own register context, stack, data and heap space and communication with other ULPs is performed using locally synchronous, location transparent, message passing primitives. The aim of the package is to provide support for lightweight over-decomposition, optimized local communication and transparent dynamic migration. The package supports a subset of the Parallel Virtual Machine(PVM) interface[Sun90).

The Impact Of Collective Bargaining On The Civil Service Merit System In Oregon, David K. Blanchard

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the impact of collective bargaining on the civil service merit system in the State of Oregon. Four topics of current interest are explored. The first is a discussion of the status of collective bargaining and the civil service merit system legislation. The second topic is an analysis of the extent to which the day-to-day administration of public sector personnel functions is determined by the relative influence of collective bargaining agreements and civil service rules. The third is the impact of the collective bargaining model on the integrity of the merit principle. The final topic addressed by this …

Logic Synthesis With High Testability For Cellular Arrays, Andisheh Sarabi

Dissertations and Theses

The new Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technologies and their structures have opened up new approaches to logic design and synthesis. The main feature of an FPGA is an array of logic blocks surrounded by a programmable interconnection structure. Cellular FPGAs are a special class of FPGAs which are distinguished by their fine granularity and their emphasis on local cell interconnects. While these characteristics call for specialized synthesis tools, the availability of logic gates other than Boolean AND, OR and NOT in these architectures opens up new possibilities for synthesis. Among the possible realizations of Boolean functions, XOR logic is …

Meeting Notes 1994-04-14 , Joint Policy Advisory Committee On Transportation

Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation

No abstract provided.

City Club Of Portland Report On Regional Intergovernmental Planning, City Club Of Portland (Portland, Or.)

City Club of Portland

No abstract provided.