Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

A Pilot Investigation Of An Instrument For The Assessment Of Feeding Disorders In Children With Severe Disabilities, Annaliese E. Norris

Theses and Dissertations--Communication Sciences and Disorders

The purpose of this pilot investigation was to assess the inter-rater reliability of an expert-validated pediatric feeding assessment, designed for clinician use with children who have severe disabilities. The tool would ideally allow for standardization of the clinical mealtime assessment process.

A comprehensive review of available feeding instruments revealed that there is a need for an assessment tool for children with motor and developmentally based feeding problems.In response to this need, a new clinician administered instrument called the Mealtime Assessment Tool for Children (MATCH) was developed in order to guide the assessment of a child during a clinical meal.

The …

Professional Competencies For E-Helpers: A Telepractice Resource, Hannah M. Schlaak

Theses and Dissertations--Communication Sciences and Disorders

The primary purpose of this study was to craft and validate a set of core competencies necessary for an e-Helper to possess. A review of the literature guided the creation of the initial competencies. Following expert review, the competencies were revised and formatted into an online survey which was sent to respondents in four target groups: (a) school administrators who had adopted telepractice as a service delivery model; (b) SLPs experienced in telepractice within a school setting; (c) current e-Helpers, and (d) scholars experienced in telepractice. Sixty percent (21 out of 35) of the competencies were rated as “important” by …

Parent-Implemented Language Intervention With Young Children From Low-Ses Environments Who Have Language Impairment, Courtney Allison Hatcher

Theses and Dissertations--Rehabilitation Sciences

In this study, the author examined the effects of training four parents from low-socioeconomic environments to use Enhanced Milieu Teaching (EMT) with their young children with language impairment. The investigator used a modified Teach-Model-Coach-Review method to teach parents to use the following EMT strategies during 8-10 individualized, home-based sessions: matched turns, expansions, time delays and milieu teaching prompts. A single-case multiple-baseline design across-behaviors replicated across four parent/child dyads was used to evaluate the parents' use of the EMT strategies. Child language outcomes were also assessed using pre- and post-intervention language samples. All parents learned and demonstrated use of each language …

Joint Decision-Making In Married Couples Affected By Aphasia, Ryan S. Husak

Theses and Dissertations--Rehabilitation Sciences

Background: Aphasia is an acquired language disorder, usually due to stroke, that affects the social functioning and the quality of life of the person with aphasia as well as the quality of life of his or her family and caregivers. Traditional aphasia therapy has tended to focus on decontextualized tasks and discrete elements of language functioning. The Life Participation Approach to Aphasia (LPAA) focuses on the collaborative nature of communication and addresses communication within personally relevant contexts. Joint decision-making is one type of social interaction that occurs frequently between married couples and has received considerable attention in the literature. …

Myosin-Xva Is Key Molecule In Establishing The Architecture Of Mechanosensory Stereocilia Bundles Of The Inner Ear Hair Cells, Shadan Hadi

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

Development of hair cell stereocilia bundles involves three stages: elongation, thickening, and supernumerary stereocilia retraction. Although Myo-XVa is known to be essential for stereocilia elongation, its role in retraction/thickening remains unknown. We quantified stereocilia numbers/diameters in shaker-2 mice (Myo15^sh2) that have deficiencies in “long” and “short” isoforms of myosin-XVa, and in mice lacking only the “long” myosin-XVa isoform (Myo15^ΔN). Our data showed that myosin-XVa is largely not involved in the developmental retraction of supernumerary stereocilia. In normal development, the diameters of the first (tallest)/second row stereocilia within a bundle are equal and grow simultaneously. …