Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Block Scheduling Social Skills Groups: An Intensive And Inclusive Model, Jennifer K. Schoffer Closson, Anisa Goforth

Speech, Language, Hearing, and Occupational Sciences Faculty Publications

This poster was presented at the annual Montana Speech Language and Hearing Convention in Missoula.

Current Steering And Electrode Spanning With Partial Tripolar Stimulation Mode In Cochlear Implants, Ching-Chih Wu

Open Access Dissertations

Cochlear implants (CIs) partially restore hearing sensation to profoundly deaf people by electrically stimulating the surviving auditory neurons. However, CI users perform poorly in challenging listening tasks such as speech recognition in noise and Cochlear implants (CIs) partially restore hearing sensation to profoundly deaf people by electrically stimulating the surviving auditory neurons. However, CI users perform poorly in challenging listening tasks such as speech recognition in noise and music perception, possibly due to the small number of implanted electrodes and the large current spread of electric stimulation. Although current spread may be reduced using partial tripolar (pTP) stimulation mode, the …

Clinical Implications Of Binaural Interference: A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Michael Bergen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A binaural advantage has been described in many studies over the past fifty years, although research also has demonstrated examples of a disadvantage known as binaural interference. The literature varies greatly in suggesting the incidence of binaural interference across all populations. It also raises questions about the underlying causes of this phenomenon, as well as whether age-related changes have an impact.

A systematic review was engaged to summarize the literature associated with binaural interference, to identify clinical implications of this body of literature, and to answer two research questions:

1) Does the literature describe changes in susceptibility to binaural interference …

The Status Of Neonatal Hearing Screening In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review, David Engelman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Late identification of hearing loss can lead to speech and language delays, as well as social and academic difficulties. Neonatal hearing screening has reduced the age of identification of hearing loss in many developed countries. However, the practice is limited or non-existent in much of the developing world, such as sub-Saharan Africa. This systematic review used currently available literature to determine the status of neonatal hearing screening programs in sub-Saharan Africa and to develop a model program for the region. Results suggested a lack of neonatal hearing screening services in sub-Saharan Africa, stressing the need for more pilot hearing screening …

Underprivileged Children In Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: Hearing And Academic Performance Of Children In Public Schools In Port Au Prince, Talia Meisel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hearing loss is estimated to affect more than 360 million people worldwide, 32% of whom are children. Children with hearing loss tend to develop compromised communicative abilities and also have been found to perform more poorly academically than their normal hearing peers. Because of the lack of medical care, children in third world countries are expected to have more difficulty hearing and learning in a classroom setting than children in first world countries due to higher incidences of conductive pathology. The purpose of this study is to assess the hearing ability of underprivileged children in kindergarten and primary schools in …

When Less Can Be More: Dual Task Effects In Stuttering And Fluent Adults, Naomi Nechama Eichorn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study tested the counterintuitive hypothesis that engaging cognitive resources in a secondary task while speaking could benefit aspects of speech production. Effects of dual task conditions on speech fluency, rate, and error patterns were examined in stuttering and fluent speakers based on specific predictions derived from three related theoretical frameworks. Twenty fluent adults and 19 adults with confirmed diagnoses of stuttering participated in the study. All participants completed two baseline tasks: (1) a continuous speaking task in which spontaneous speech was produced in response to given prompts; and (2) a working memory (WM) task involving manipulations of WM …

September 10, 2014, Communication Disorders & Sciences

Faculty Meeting Minutes & Agendas

Meeting minutes of the September 10, 2014 Faculty Committee meeting.

Across-Speaker Articulatory Normalization For Speaker-Independent Silent Speech Recognition, Jun Wang, Ashok Samal, Jordan Green

CSE Conference and Workshop Papers

Silent speech interfaces (SSIs), which recognize speech from articulatory information (i.e., without using audio information), have the potential to enable persons with laryngectomy or a neurological disease to produce synthesized speech with a natural sounding voice using their tongue and lips. Current approaches to SSIs have largely relied on speaker-dependent recognition models to minimize the negative effects of talker variation on recognition accuracy. Speaker-independent approaches are needed to reduce the large amount of training data required from each user; only limited articulatory samples are often available for persons with moderate to severe speech impairments, due to the logistic difficulty of …

Autonomic Nervous System Activity Of Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter., Victoria Tumanova, Robin M. Jones, Anthony P. Buhr, Edward G. Conture, Tedra A. Walden, Stephen W. Porges

Communication Sciences and Disorders - All Scholarship

Purpose—The purpose of this study was to investigate potential differences in autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity to emotional stimuli between preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS).

Methods—Participants were 20 preschool-age CWS (15 male) and 21 preschool-age CWNS (11 male). Participants were exposed to two emotion-inducing video clips (negative and positive) with neutral clips used to establish pre-and post-arousal baselines, and followed by age-appropriate speaking tasks. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) – often used as an index of parasympathetic activity – and skin conductance level (SCL) – often used as an index of sympathetic activity – were measured …

Quantifying Voice Change After Hydration Treatment In Primary Sjögren’S Syndrome Using The Cepstral Spectral Index Of Dysphonia (Csid), Alison Miner

Theses and Dissertations

Primary Sjögren's Syndrome (SS) is an autoimmune disease that causes dehydration of the eyes, mouth, and throat. Individuals with Primary SS are at risk for voice problems associated with vocal fold dehydration. Topical hydration treatments show promise in reducing the negative effects of vocal fold dehydration on voice production. However, no studies have examined the preventive effects of topical hydration treatments on voice production in individuals at risk for vocal fold dehydration. The purpose of this study was to quantify the effects of a topical vocal fold hydration treatment on voice production in individuals with Primary SS using the Cepstral …

Production Of Complex/Compounds Sentences In The Spontaneous Speech Of Typically Developing Children And Children With Williams Syndrome, Maureen Boyle

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Literature claims individuals with Williams syndrome (WS), a rare congenital genetic mental retardation syndrome, easily engage in conversation and demonstrate unique and advanced linguistic skills compared to typically developing peers (TDP). These claims are supported by limited empirical evidence, however. One method of judging advanced linguistic skills is to compare the production of complex/compound sentences of children with WS and their TDP. The purpose of the study was to determine whether children with WS use more complex/compound sentences than children who are typically developing. Twelve subjects participated in the study. Six subjects with WS (SWS), mean age 15, and 6 …

The Use Of Paralinguistics In Spontaneous Speech Of Children With Williams Syndrome And Typically Development Children, Kelly Ritter, Evan Panitzke, Emily Kruse

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

This project investigated selected aspects of paralinguistics in spontaneous speech of speakers with Williams syndrome. Speakers with Williams syndrome “are noted for their well developed vocabulary, relatively complex and syntactically correct sentences, and their ability to spin a good tale. In contrast, their reasoning usually remains at a pre-operational or preschool level, and they typically have difficulty grasping cause-effect relations” (Semel & Rosner, 2003, p. 5). This research focused on an area of communication called paralinguistics which involved the use of nonspeech sounds for communication. Specifically, we looked at the frequency of laughing and sound effects produced during conversation. Ten …

Role Of The Cochlea And Efferent System In Children With Auditory Processing Disorder, Sriram Boothalingam

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Auditory processing disorder (APD) is characterized by difficulty listening in noisy environments despite normal hearing thresholds. APD was previously thought to be restricted to deficits in the central auditory system. The current work sought to investigate brainstem and peripheral mechanisms that may contribute to difficulties in speech understanding in noise in children with suspected APD (sAPD). Three mechanisms in particular were investigated: cochlear tuning, efferent function, and spatial hearing. Cochlear tuning was measured using stimulus frequency otoacoustic emission (SFOAE) group delay. Results indicate that children suspected with APD have atypically sharp cochlear tuning, and reduced medial olivocochlear (MOC) functioning. Sharper-than-typical …

Characterizing Spoken Discourse In Individuals With Parkinson Disease Without Dementia, Angela C. Roberts

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Background: The effects of disease (PD) on cognition, word retrieval, syntax, and speech/voice processes may interact to manifest uniquely in spoken language tasks. A handful of studies have explored spoken discourse production in PD and, while not ubiquitously, have reported a number of impairments including: reduced words per minute, reduced grammatical complexity, reduced informativeness, and increased verbal disruption. Methodological differences have impeded cross-study comparisons. As such, the profile of spoken language impairments in PD remains ambiguous.

Method: A cross-genre, multi-level discourse analysis, prospective, cross-sectional between groups study design was conducted with 19 PD participants (M_age = 70.74, M …

Evaluation Of Auditory Evoked Potentials As A Hearing Aid Outcome Measure, Vijayalakshmi Easwar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis aimed to explore the applicability of Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials (CAEPs) and Envelope Following Responses (EFRs) as objective aided outcome measures for use in infants wearing hearing aids. The goals for CAEP-related projects were to evaluate the effect of speech stimulus source on CAEPs, non-linear hearing aid processing on tone-evoked CAEPs, and the effect of inter-stimulus intervals on non-linear hearing aid processing of phonemes. Results illustrated larger amplitude CAEPs with shorter latencies for speech stimuli from word-medial positions than word-initial positions, and no significant effect of the tone burst onset overshoot due to non-linear hearing aid processing. Inter-stimulus …

Individual Characteristics And Their Effect On Predicting Mu Rhythm Modulation, Adriane Randolph, Melody Jackson, Saurav Karmakar

Adriane B. Randolph

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer users with severe motor disabilities a nonmuscular input channel for communication and control but require that users achieve a level of literacy and be able to harness their appropriate electrophysiological responses for effective use of the interface. There is currently no formalized process for determining a user's aptitude for control of various BCIs without testing on an actual system. This study presents how basic information captured about users may be used to predict modulation of mu rhythms, electrical variations in the motor cortex region of the brain that may be used for control of a BCI. …

The Effects Of Target Spectrum, Noise, And Reverberation On Auditory Cue Weighting In Sound Localization, Tran M. Nguyen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Sound localization in the horizontal plane depends on interaural time difference (ITD) and interaural level difference (ILD) cues, which are both available in wideband sounds. Previous studies have directly measured listener weighting of those cues only under quiet, anechoic conditions, but not in the presence of noise and reverberation, which can degrade both ITD and ILD. This study examined the effects of changes in target spectral profile, background noise, and reverberation on sound localization performance and cue weighting strategies. Listeners reported locations of targets that were presented over headphones in virtual auditory space. ITD and ILD were manipulated by attenuating …

Effects Of Language Predictability And Speech Rate On Speech Entrainment Performance In Healthy Individuals, Honey Isabel Hubbard

Theses and Dissertations

Speech entrainment, a paradigm in which a participant shadows the speech of an audiovisual model in real time, has been show to benefit individuals with non-fluent aphasia. A study examining the effects of language predictability and speech rate was conducted to understand factors that influence speech entrainment performance.

A recent study by Fridriksson and colleagues (2012) demonstrated that training with speech entrainment significantly increased the number of words participants with non-fluent aphasia were able to produce. Perhaps even more remarkably, these effects showed generalization. As a result, speech entrainment could be used to rehabilitate speech impairment in stroke. However, there …

The Inter-Relationship Between Core Language Skills And Social Competence In Preschool Children, Clarissa Lau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Language skills provide preschoolers with the foundational skills needed to socially interact, but little is known about the relationship between specific language skills and broad constructs of social competence. Sixteen preschoolers between 3-5 years with varying language abilities were recruited. Descriptive and correlational analyses were conducted to examine the relationships between speech, syntax, semantics, coherence, and literacy skills and social cooperation, social independence and social interaction. The main finding of this study showed that literacy skills as measured by the Numbers, Letters and Words subtest (K-SEALS) and word knowledge and retrieval as measured by the Semantics subscale ( …

Verb Use In Parkinson's Disease, Swati S. Nikumb

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Verb-specific impairments in their use and comprehension are well documented in persons with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The grammatical and the motor theories have been proposed as possible explanations for verb impairments. The purpose of this study is to describe the use of low-motion and high-motion content verbs in PD in everyday conversation and to determine which theory best supports these findings. In this cross-sectional prospective study, conversation samples were collected and analyzed from participants with PD and their spouses in a mealtime context. Results indicated that total verb use on a proportional basis was not significantly different between persons with …

Accuracy Of /T/ Productions In Children With Cochlear Implants As Compared To Normal-Hearing, Articulation Age-Matched Peers, Terry Gier

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children who receive cochlear implants (CIs) demonstrate considerable variability in speech sound production. Investigations focused on speech sound development in children with CIs have shown initial accelerated growth, followed by a plateau where consonant order of acquisition generally mirrors that of NH children, but is slower (Blamey, Barry, & Pascale, 2001; Serry & Blamey, 1999; Spencer & Guo, 2013). A notable exception to this pattern, /t/, has been shown to be acquired later-than normal in several investigations (Blamey et al., 2001; Chin, 2003; Ertmer, True Kloiber, Jongmin, Connell Kirleis, & Bradford, 2012). The primary purpose of this investigation was to …

Evaluating Telepractice: Measuring Success, Cost-Benefit, & Outcomes, Scott Palasik

Scott Palasik

No abstract provided.

Hearing Care For Older Adults: A Practical Approach To Audiologic Rehabilitation, Sharon Lesner

Sharon Lesner

No abstract provided.

Audiologic Rehabilitation: Candidacy, Assessment And Management, Sharon Lesner

Sharon Lesner

No abstract provided.

The Audiology Oath: A Survey Of Opinions And Current Practices., James Steiger

James R. Steiger

We surveyed audiologists and students to elicit opinions and information regarding the Audiology Oath. Fewer than half of respondents were aware of the oath. The oath was shared with all surveyed; over 85% of respondents agreed with the components of the oath and less than 13% offered changes. White coat and graduation ceremonies are considered appropriate for oath recitation. We hope that whenever the Audiology Oath is recited it will strengthen commitment to ethical practice.

The Effect Of Botulinum Toxin Type A On Speech Intelligibility In Oromandibular Dystonia, Beatriz Ysabel Domingo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Speech intelligibility of 10 individuals with OMD was measured before and after receiving BoNT-A injections. Intelligibility was assessed using the PIT (single-word intelligibility), SIT (sentence intelligibility), and a conversational speech task. Five listeners rated the speech intelligibility of these three intelligibility tasks via orthographic transcription and visual analogue scaling (VAS) techniques. BoNT-A was not associated with significant differences in speech intelligibility. Further analysis revealed a significant difference on the PIT VAS intelligibility ratings based on order of presentation, suggesting that listeners rated the first half of words on the PIT (words 1-29) as more intelligible than the second half of …

Reliability Of Two Alternative Methods For The Standard Mid-Thigh Isometric Pull, Duane A. Williams, Courtney D. Hall, Patsy Cantor, Jennifer Williams, N. Brown, Ryan Dulling, Ogechi Egbujor

ETSU Faculty Works

The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of two new alternative portable methods for measuring maximal isometric force measures while performing the standard mid-thigh pull. One method, the bar grip method, required the use of the trunk and upper extremity muscles, while the second method, the pelvic belt method, did not. Both methods demonstrated good test-retest reliability via randomized repeated measures over 24-36 hours. Interestingly, the pelvic belt method generally demonstrated average maximal forces up to 65% higher than the bar method. There was a good relationship between both methods. These new alternative methods could provide strength …

Comparing Speech Movements In Different Types Of Noise, Sarah Jane Scott

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the impact of several noise conditions on speech articulator movements during a sentence repetition task. Sixty participants in three age groups ranging from 20 to 70 repeated a sentence under five noise conditions. Lower lip movements during production of a target sentence were used to compute the spatiotemporal index (STI). It was hypothesized that STI would be lower (indicating greater stability) in the silent baseline condition. There were changes in speech production under several of the noise conditions. The duration for the 1-talker condition was significantly shorter when compared to the silent condition, which could be due …

Spelling Of Derivationally Complex Words: The Role Of Phonological, Orthographic, And Morphological Features, Sofia Benson-Goldberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Spelling ability is not static; rather, as children age, learning how to encode morphophonologically complex words in conventional ways is motivated by the increasingly complex demands imposed by academic experiences with morphologically complex words. Success requires ongoing integration of phonological (P), orthographic (O) and morphological (M) knowledge. However, current research on the development and assessment of spelling has not sufficiently accounted for the way word features and participant characteristics interact with students' POM knowledge in the spelling of derived words. This study used a linear mixed effects regression approach to provide new insights about how both word characteristics and students' …

The Spanish Language Proficiency Of Sequential Bilingual Children And The Spanish-English Language Proficiency Scale, Jessica Maribel Tavizón

Theses and Dissertations

The challenge facing children learning language bilingually has led to efforts to improve the assessment and treatment of language learning difficulties. One of these efforts is the development and validation of the Spanish-English Language Proficiency Scale (SELPS). Previous research has been performed to validate the scale for English language proficiency but not for Spanish language proficiency. Twenty-four sequential bilingual children produced spontaneous narrative language samples that were rated using the SELPS and coded for language sample variables using the Systemic Analysis of Language Transcripts software. Several language sample variables, most notably the Subordination Index, the number of omitted bound morphemes, …