Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

American And British Speech Differences In Low Socioeconomic Status Homes, Jennifer Markfeld

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Background: Infants living in low socioeconomic status (SES) homes display lower developmental functioning by 12 months than mid- and high-SES infants, and speak fewer words on average as they grow older. Maternal speech is especially important for language development and has been found to be the largest predictor of SES-related differences in children’s vocabulary. Although there are documented differences between British and American infant language development, for example American infant lexicons are typically larger than age matched British infants, there is little research looking at caregiver speech across these countries in low SES groups.

Method: This retrospective study compared 10 …

Examining The Effectiveness Of Interprofessional Collaboration For Preprofessional Speech-Language Pathology And Occupational Therapy Graduate Students, Morgan Cornwell

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This study explores the effects of an emergent writing interprofessional collaboration experience for preprofessional speech-language pathology (SLP) and occupational therapy (OT) graduate students. The preprofessionals were split into two groups (SLP only and SLP-OT pairs) and delivered emergent writing interventions to preschoolers either individually (SLP only) or collaboratively (SLP-OT pairs). The purpose of this study was to investigate how working collaboratively versus working individually to deliver the interventions to preschoolers influences the preprofessionals’ knowledge of theInterprofessional Education Collaborative’s (IPEC) core competencies and emergent writing concepts. The results showed that paired preprofessionals reported higher levels of interprofessional competency than unpaired preprofessionals. …

Participant Accuracy And Impact Of Biofeedback On A Skilled Swallowing Task, Caris Giessler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Biofeedback is as a visual way to self-assess muscle contraction, particularly during rehabilitative exercises. Speech language pathologists and otolaryngologists have investigated the use of visual biofeedback in swallowing therapy, especially for volitional swallowing rehabilitative exercises such as the effortful swallow, which requires the patient to maximally swallow with all their strength. In contrast to the effortful swallow, “effortful skilled swallowing” is the ability to swallow with a specific and precise amount of effort, which is an emerging topic in dysphagia research. Dysphagia, also known as disordered swallowing, can be an organic congenital disorder treated via feeding tubes, or an acquired …

Do Emg Monitoring And Amplitude Normalization Reduce Cvemp Variability In A Pediatric Population?, Brenna Murray

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Untreated balance disorders can cause anxiety, social withdrawal, and even slow motor development in children, making early and accurate diagnosis crucial to patient care. One of the leading tests for the diagnosis of balance disorders is known as the cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP) test. The cVEMP test is the only clinically available tool that assesses the integrity of the organ of balance known as the saccule and its afferent pathway through the inferior vestibular nerve. The test is noninvasive and easy to administer, making patient diagnosis quick and effective rendering it crucial in the assessment of vestibular function …

Cervical Vestibular-Evoked Myogenic Potentials (Cvemps): "Differentiation Of Inter-Neck Emg Symmetry Between Children And Adults", Ellen Jones

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

A cervical Vestibular-Evoked Myogenic Potential (cVEMP) is one of the few objective vestibular diagnostic tests available for pediatric populations. This test evaluates the functionality of the saccule end organ through an inhibitory reflex on the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle that inhibits the level of electromyographic (EMG) activity (Wiener-Vacher, 2013). Because the saccule response is measured as an inhibition of EMG in the SCM, it is imperative that the SCM have a tonic contraction prior to eliciting the response and that the contraction of the SCM is equal on the right and left sides. It is generally accepted that young, healthy adults …

The Feasibility Of Standardized Cognitive Assessments For Vestibular Patients, Brynn Morales

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Vestibular dysfunction, or impairments in the inner ear and/or brain structures that process sensory information and help control balance, has a high correlation with cognitive deficits, or problems with mental processes. This relationship negatively affects daily activities and quality of life in persons that live with vestibular dysfunction. Though there is sufficient research proving the relationship, few studies have applied that information in ways to better help the population with vestibular dysfunction. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of a cognitive assessment battery (a set of correlated assessments delivered in one session) tailored to measuring performance …

Speech Characteristics Of Conversational Speech Tasks, Ashley Cox

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Conversational speech tasks are utilized in research and clinical practice of speech and hearing sciences. Nonetheless, conversational speech is often defined and implemented differently across contexts, which poses a challenge for the interpretation and comparison of data gathered. The purpose of this pilot study is to compare speech characteristics elicited with different speech tasks that have been adopted to elicit conversational speech. Specifically, speech produced during an interview, a topic-driven free conversation, and a Diapix is compared. An interview is a task where one individual (the researcher) leads the conversation by asking the other individual questions. A topic-driven …

Perspectives Of Caregiver-Survivor Dyads Following Tbi: A Case Series, Shayleen Brennan

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is trauma to the brain triggered by an external force that causes the brain to crash violently against the skull and disrupt normal functioning. Following a TBI, the survivor often faces challenges that compromise independence. These can include challenges in communication, cognition, and overall physical functioning. Resultantly, reliance upon the individual’s loved ones as both advocates and caregivers is essential to functional recovery. This qualitative study investigates the experiences reported between both survivors and their primary caregivers. Using a qualitative approach, exploration of the convergent and divergent perspectives between survivors and caregivers post-TBI were researched. …

Hearing Studies In Old Mice: The Effect Of Pre-Pulse Inhibition On The Acoustic Startle Response, Ashley B. Hillyard, Nicolette S. Chuss

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this study pertains to hearing in the species Peromyscus maniculatus (deer mice) — specifically their responses to a startling sound. Approximately seven mice were tested between four and five years of age, approaching the lifespan of this species. By means of an accelerometer, which measures a reflexive, motor response, the mice were presented with an acoustic startle-eliciting stimulus (SES) — that is a loud, startling, unexpected sound. During the study, the mice were also presented with a softer, less-intense stimulus — known as a pre-pulse — slightly before the more intense sound. This pre-pulse stimulus was in …

Deaf Education: The Past, Present, And Future, Diana Burke

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Back in the 1800's, sign language was banned from schools because of the prevailing view that sign language inhibited children who are deaf from interacting with the hearing society. Today, due to the growth of technology, children who are deaf can communicate using sign language and spoken language. These children can attend mainstream schools or schools for the Deaf. This paper will focus on the history of schools for the Deaf and my observations as a student observer at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind (VSDB). VSDB is a residential school providing students who are deaf and blind …

Establishing Effective Amplitude Criterion For Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, Lindsey Michele Schwenger

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

My honors project will document and reflect on my experiences as a member of a research team that is studying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a treatment for dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, which affects a vast, diverse group of individuals. There is substantial need for more efficient and effective rehabilitation strategies used to restore abilities and reduce the risks associated with dysphagia. Recent studies have addressed these risks by exploring tDCS as a treatment for central nervous system damage caused by stroke, traumatic brain injury, and Parkinson's disease. Research has recently been conducted to test its effectiveness, but has …

Behavioral Audiometry Testing In Drosophila Melanogaster, Amanda Cascio

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The genetic make up of Drosophila melanogaster aligns closely enough to humans for them to function as models for the study of hearing loss and disorders (Albert & Göpfert, 2015; Duyk et al., 1997). The purpose of this project was to design a computer automated program capable of quickly assessing the hearing of flies based on their suppression of courtship behaviors in the presence of an audible stimulus. We were unable to document the male courtship song due to low frequency noise present in our sound attenuating booth. We continued the experiment using a spectrum of fly noise unassociated with …

Comparing Two Naturalistic Pragmatic Assessments: The Celf-5 Pragmatic Activities And The Yale In Vivo Pragmatic Protocol (Yipp), Rebecca Reid

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Pragmatics, or the social use of language, is a dimension of communication skills that is very difficult to assess due to its dependence on cultural norms, situational context, and speaker differences. Of the current methods for evaluating pragmatic language skills in children, the literature most frequently recommends naturalistic assessment because it allows the clinician to most closely simulate a real-life interaction. Despite these recommendations, limited information exists to guide clinicians in making decisions about which activities yield the most representative pragmatic language sample. This preliminary study compared two naturalistic pragmatic assessments, the Pragmatic Activities from the Clinical Evaluation of Language …

A Step Towards Differentiating Language Difference From Disorder, Sarah Scribano

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

English learners (ELs) composed 10% of the American school-age population in the 2014 – 2015 school year. However, only a small percentage of speech language pathologists (SLPs) report feeling well qualified to address the cultural and linguistic needs of ELs. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including inadequate clinical markers, a shortage of developmental data for ELs, and a lack of cultural consideration in standardized assessments. Due to these barriers, SLPs struggle to differentiate between language differences and language disorders and are at risk for over-identifying or under-identifying language impairment (LI) in ELs. Research suggests that a …

Augmented Reality For At-Home Speech Intervention, Emily Vayo

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that allows users to view graphics, videos, or other applications in their environment in real time using mobile devices, such as a smartphone or tablet. It provides an interactive way to combine technology and learning. Although AR has potential applications in the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders, few studies have investigated its reliability in speech intervention. This project explores whether parents are receptive to implementing AR technology into speech intervention and addresses one way to make intervention more engaging. The project looked at parental attitudes toward AR in integrating speech intervention goals at …

Conversational Speech Characteristics During Entrainment, Pamela Molnar

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This study examined the acoustic characteristics of conversational speech associated with entrainment, which is the tendency for communicative behaviors of individuals engaged in a given communication context to become alike (Borrie & Liss, 2014). The study adopted a within-speaker approach to evaluate changes in speech production characteristics relative to the given individual, defined as the repeated speaker. Across experiment sessions, the repeated speaker interacted with different communication partners, who were defined as the non-repeated speakers. In each session, the repeated speaker and one non-repeated speaker engaged in a series of tasks in the following order: conversation, interactive picture description task, …

Pupillometry As A Test Of Infant Word Recognition, Kierra Lynch

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

By 11 months of age, infants recognize commonly occurring word forms in their environment. The Head Turn Preference Paradigm (HTPP) is the one method of measuring infant word form recognition. The HTPP uses looking times as judged by a head turn of the infant towards or away from a speaker. This method is thus subject to infant attention, which can make it difficult to get accurate results when infants are not paying attention due to external factors (for example, teething). Pupillometry is a non-invasive, physiological measurement that uses pupil dilation to assess cognitive processes. Pupil dilations have been found to …

Does Emg Monitoring In A Cvemp Matter?, Kimberly Fleck

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

To determine if EMG monitoring or the use of amplitude normalization would significantly reduce the amplitude variability and amplitude asymmetry of the cVEMP in children ages 3 and under, we first needed to create a control group with young, healthy adults to compare the pediatric group to. We also wanted to replicate earlier studies that showed EMG monitoring and amplitude normalization does not have an impact on the VEMP in young, healthy adults. We tested two different positions, sitting and supine. Supine is the optimal position to generate EMG, but we wanted to have control data in case the pediatric …

Use Of Behavior Strategies In Speech-Language Therapy: A Survey Of Virginia School Based Speech-Language Pathologists, Gillian Withers

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In the public schools, Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) serve as clinicians to children with various language, articulation, and communication disorders. Often times, these conditions are present in children who also have disruptive or inattentive behaviors. SLPs in the school system are required to provide effective treatment to each child; however, too often the effectiveness of treatment is hindered by behavior outbursts from the children. Although there are empirically supported plans and strategies for behavior management in general elementary school classrooms, little is known about the knowledge and implementation practices of SLPs who serve school-age children. The purpose of this honors thesis …

Interdisciplinary Skill Development During Summer Autism Clinic, Rachel F. Kagle

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The present paper focuses on the interdisciplinary skill development of speech-language pathology graduate student clinicians and occupational therapy graduate student clinicians in the treatment of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. This paper explains the significance of these disciplines in the treatment of Autism before giving the results of the study. For the present study, data was collected at James Madison University’s Summer Autism Camp over a four-week period. There were ten speech-language pathology (SLP) clinicians that received the survey and eleven children with Autism that were enrolled in the program. It was hypothesized that the SLP clinicians would display skill …

The Relationship Between Fundamental Frequency Variation And Articulation In Healthy Speech Production, Casey Behre

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Fundamental Frequency (F0) and articulation are two factors of speech production that impact speech perception, and yet the potential interactions of these two factors are not well understood. Their relationship has potential theoretical as well as clinical implications. This Honors Project aims to better understand this relationship by examining changes in fundamental frequency (F0) and the acoustic vowel space as an index of articulatory behaviors with a within-speaker approach. Specifically, F0 variations were examined in relation to the acoustic vowel space for 10 male native speakers of American English. Two sets of acoustic measures were made to evaluate F0 and …

Effect Of Biofeedback And Exercise Type On Neural Swallowing Control, Rachel J. Rinehart

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The clinical efficacy of swallowing exercises is well established in swallowing literature, and biofeedback has been shown to augment cortical hemodynamic response (HDR) during normal swallowing. This study compared HDR during swallowing exercises with and without biofeedback to HDR during normal swallows with and without biofeedback. Healthy adult participants (n=6, mean age=50.83 male=2) were recruited and trained on the following conditions: normal swallowing, swallowing exercise in which a specific physiological target was given (skilled), and swallowing exercises in which no specific physiological target had to be achieved (non-skilled). Biofeedback consisted of submental surface electromyography (sEMG) signals displayed visually. HDR were …

Maladaptive Behavior And Communication Disorders Following Tbi: Survivor, Caregiver And Speech-Language Pathologists' Perspectives, Marena S. Jones

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Following traumatic brain injury (TBI), individuals often face neurobehavioral challenges (e.g., aggression) that hinder treatment. Research on the relationship between communication disorders and maladaptive behaviors is limited. Participants from a convenience sample of two survivors of TBI, a caregiver, and a speech-language pathologist were interviewed about their experiences and perspectives. The interviews reflected focused questions that were congruent across participants. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded. Each coder coded the transcriptions individually, they were then compared using consensus coding for reliability, and finally analyzed for emergent themes. The two most referenced themes were “Communication challenges” and “Changes through rehab”. “Communication …

Mother’S Perceptions Of Their Personal Impact On Infant Language Development, Miranda Steinbeck

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

During the early months of a child’s language development, their ability to perceive and process language is very fluid and the language input they receive can have a large impact on their language later in life. From the beginning, children need to be able to differentiate the sounds of speech from the rest of the sounds that occur in their environment (Golinkoff, Can, Soderstrom, Hirsh-Pasek, 2015). In other words, children are exposed to the different sounds in their environment and they begin to pick up on the speech sounds, such as conversation-like interactions, with their parents (Golinkoff et al., 2015). …

Effects Of Age, Timbre, Pitch Contour, And Background Noise On Melodic Contour Identification And Sentence Recognition By Children, Lindsey M. Seyfried, Sarah A. Troy

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The researchers collaborated together with the help of Dr. Yingjiu Nie in the Lab of Auditory Perception in Children and Adults on the four research studies completed there. Through these projects, they were involved in all areas of the research process. While they cannot claim the research project as their own, by assisting the graduate students and Dr. Nie, they exposed themselves to how research is conducted in this field and gained valuable knowledge in the process. To conclude the project, they each wrote individual personals reflection to summarize and review the experience.

The Effect Of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease On Swallowing, Jessica R. Torres

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This work is composed of a literature review, research review, and self-reflective essay. The anatomy and physiology of normal swallowing and respiration are reviewed. Additionally, the effect of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on these processes is discussed. The research goal was to determine how lung volume changes adapt the physiology of swallowing in individuals with COPD. The research project was designed and conducted by Teresa Drulia, M.S., CCC-SLP. COPD participants (n=9, mean age=72, 6 male) were compared to older healthy individuals (n=10, mean age= 59, 3 male). Participants completed swallows of 20cc of water at four lung volume conditions: …

Type And Location Of Speech Disruptions In Adolescents With And Without Specific Language Impairment, Katherine E. Davies

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This research project analyzed the types and locations of speech disruptions in adolescents with and without Specific Language Impairment (SLI). The narrative samples of 12 adolescents with SLI and 12 typically developing (TD) adolescents were analyzed. Using Schwalbe’s (2012) classification system, the speech disruptions in the 24 narratives were coded for the type and reason for disruption. The broad category of speech disruptions were classified under revisions, repetitions, filled pauses and orphans, and silent pauses. The reason for the disruption was coded as the part of speech of the word that was determined to have caused the disruption. Comparisons were …

Reflection: Effect Of Age On Auditory Brainstem Responses In Mice With Epha4 Mutations, Erica L. Hoogerland

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss is a condition that affects approximately 40% of the population over 65 years of age (Gates & Mills, 2005). Studying the effects of EphA4 mutations (wild type, heterozygous, and homozygous) mice is fundamental in understanding the relationship between onset of age-related hearing loss, in both the mammalian population and the human population. In order to further understanding of age-related hearing loss, the researchers evaluated thirty-six mice in a preliminary study from two months to nine months of age. Following data analysis, the researchers confirmed the results by continuing a second round of testing. The hearing …

Build-Up Effect Of Auditory Stream Segregation Using Amplitude-Modulated Narrowband Noise, Harley J. Wheeler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Recent psychoacoustic experiments (Böckmann-Barthel et al., 2014; Deike et al., 2012) have re-examined research regarding stream segregation and the build-up effect. Stream segregation is the ability to discern auditory objects within a stream of information, such as distinguishing one voice amongst background noise or an instrument within an orchestra. Initial works examining this topic proposed that auditory information is not immediately distinguished as various streams, but rather that differences accumulate over time, allowing listeners to segregate information following a period of build-up (i.e., the build-up effect); whereas more current findings indicate a build-up period is unnecessary for segregation. This experiment’s …

A Portfolio Of Experiences In Communications Sciences And Disorders, Dakota Michael Sharp

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

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