Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Semantic Integration In Adults With Nonverbal Learning Disabilities And Autism Spectrum Disorder: Influence Of Word Knowledge And Gestalt Perception, Margot E. Stothers

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Language in individuals with nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been described as semantically empty and impoverished, despite apparently average word knowledge. Here, inter-related studies explored semantic representations in adults with these disorders of social perception. Studies highlighted semantic integration, a form of gestalt perception in which new concepts are developed by connecting familiar terms in novel ways. Semantic integration was compared to vocabulary breadth, and to nonverbal gestalt perception, comparing clinical groups to each other and to adults without a diagnosis. Because weaknesses in gestalt perception have been seen in NLD and ASD, it was …

Signs Of Friendship, Kaylee J. Kapalko, Ashley N. Brickner

Honors Projects

This children's book is about mainstreaming a deaf student into a public school composed of predominantly hearing children, and the eventual friendship between that student and a hearing student. The majority of deaf students are educated in hearing schools and experience high rates of social isolation as a result of the inability to communicate with their peers. In order to create this book, there was collaboration between a communication disorders major and a creative writing major in order to create a realistic portrayal yet creative learning tool for children at a young age. We chose to aim our book at …

Signs Of Friendship, Ashley N. Brickner, Kaylee J. Kapalko

Honors Projects

This children's book is about mainstreaming a deaf student into a public school composed of predominantly hearing children, and the eventual friendship between that student and a hearing student. The majority of deaf students are educated in hearing schools and experience high rates of social isolation as a result of the inability to communicate with their peers. In order to create this book, there was collaboration between a communication disorders major and a creative writing major in order to create a realistic portrayal yet creative learning tool for children at a young age. We chose to aim our book at …

Incorporating A Robot In Intervention With Children With Asd: The Effect On Tantrum Behaviors, Tayler Bodon Whitmer

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effect of intervention involving a humanoid robot on challenging or tantrum behaviors of four children with low-functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The current work was part of a larger study involving the effect of the robot on functional communication skills on a variety of different interactions with different communication partners. All participants took part in a single-subject, multiple-baseline design with various session types including baseline, traditional play-based treatment, treatment including the robot, and follow-up sessions. For the purpose of this study, only the sessions including treatment with the robot where the robot interaction occurred at the …

Flow Experiences Among Individuals With Aphasia, Thomas W. Sather

Dissertations

Flow has been described as positive experiences of intense concentration, distorted time passage, and loss of self-consciousness. While flow has been reported for multiple populations in various settings, it has not been studied among individuals with aphasia. The purpose of this three paper dissertation is to examine flow experiences among individuals with mild aphasia, including environmental and personal factors associated with flow. Advocates of life participation approaches to aphasia stress the importance of interventions that support full engagement in life. Research on flow experiences and related environmental and personal factors may foster improved service delivery and outcomes for this population. …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of Systematic And Engaging Early Literacy (Seel) With Children With Asd, Maren Hyatt Davis

Theses and Dissertations

One population with challenges in learning to read is children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of using Systematic and Engaging Early Literacy (SEEL) intervention activities to improve phonological awareness and phonics skills with three children with ASD. Previous studies have looked at the effectiveness of using SEEL with other young children with diverse backgrounds; however, this is the first study to focus on using SEEL intervention with children with ASD. The study used a single-subject, multiple-baseline-across-behaviors design to compare performance on phonic patterns before and after intervention. Three young, male …

The Right Ear Advantage In Response To Levels Of Linguistic Complexity: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study, Elizabeth Hyatt

Theses and Dissertations

The right ear advantage (REA) phenomenon has been utilized in clinical and research settings to study auditory processing disorders and linguistic lateralization. Previous research has established that the REA is not reliable in its measures within or between individuals. This is likely due to the influence of other variables, such as neuromaturation and attention. One variable that has not been studied in depth in this context is linguistic complexity. It was hypothesized that stimulus conditions with levels of linguistic complexity would elicit corresponding levels of temporal lobe activity. Understanding and controlling the variables that affect the REA will increase the …

Changes In Acoustic And Kinematic Articulatory Working Space Across Three Intensity Levels, Panika Ellis Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare changes in acoustic and kinematic measures of articulation across soft, comfortable, and loud speech conditions. There were 19 participants, 9 male and 10 female, with age ranging from 20 to 34 with a median age of 25. Each participant had electromagnetic sensors glued to their tongue, jaw, and lips. It was anticipated that the acoustic measures would accurately reflect the kinematic measures of speech as articulation changed across the intensity levels. Vowel space area (VSA) and vowel articulation index (VAI) were computed from the three corner vowels, /α, i, u/. Articulatory-acoustic vowel …

Story Generation In Five School-Aged Children With Language Impairment, Suzanne Tutt Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This project examined the story generations of five children with language impairment (LI) between the ages of 5;11 and 10;1 across the treatment sessions of a narrative-based intervention program designed to improve social communication. These stories were analyzed to find whether the participants would approach the task by describing the stimulus pictures or if their stories would reflect an episodic structure containing cause and effect relationships. Additionally, the stories were analyzed for inclusion of emotion words to discern the participants' awareness of the characters' emotions. There was a high degree of variability in the participants' performance; however, the majority of …

Identification Of Participation-Related Activities To Be Used As Part Of The Development Of A Self-Efficacy Questionnaire For Adolescents With Hearing Loss, Sahar S. Zimmo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Investigating self-efficacy beliefs among adolescents with hearing loss is imperative as these perceptions affect a broad range of age-related functioning. Validated self-efficacy questionnaires for use with persons with hearing loss are currently limited to four adult measures. Development of an adolescent-relevant questionnaire aims to quantify self-efficacy for participation in daily activities and to individualize treatment interventions for adolescents with hearing loss.

Developing the self-efficacy questionnaire was based on a scoping literature review to develop a list of activities performed by typically developing adolescents. The questionnaire was piloted on a sample of youth with hearing loss.

The Adolescent Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for …

Neurophysiological Correlates Of The Critical Bandwidth In The Human Auditory System, Grace Ann Bentley

Theses and Dissertations

The critical bandwidth (CBW) is an auditory phenomenon that has been used to study various aspects of auditory processing, including auditory masking, complex tone processing, and loudness perception. Although the psychoacoustic aspects of the CBW have been well studied, the underlying neurophysiology of the CBW has not been as thoroughly examined. The current study examined the neurophysiology of the CBW in young adults, as well as loudness perception in response to the CBW. Auditory stimuli consisting of complex tones of varying bandwidths were presented to 12 individuals (6 male and 6 female, ages 18-26 years). Complex tones were presented around …

The Effects Of Laryngeal Activity On Articulatory Kinematics, Katherine Marie Barber

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the effects of three speech conditions (voiced, whispered, mouthed) on articulatory kinematics at the sentence and word level. Participants included 20 adults (10 males, 10 females) with no history of speech, language, or hearing disorders. Participants read aloud six target utterances in the three different speaking conditions while articulatory kinematics were measured using the NDI Wave electromagnetic articulograph. The following articulators were examined: mid tongue, front of tongue, jaw, lower lip, and upper lip. One of the target utterances was chosen for analysis (It's time to shop for two new suits) at the sentence …

The Audiometric Profile Of Young Adults Who Report Difficulty With Speech Perception In Noise, Michael R. Higgins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examined speech perception abilities in young adults (18-24 years) who reported having difficulty perceiving speech in the presence of background noise despite clinically-normal hearing. The purpose of this study was to compare the audiometric profile of young adults with and without perceived difficulty with speech perception in noise. The Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) was administered to obtain a measure of how participants rate their speech perception in noise under different listening conditions. Audiometric tests included standard audiometric thresholds (250-8000 Hz), high frequency pure tone thresholds (9000-12,500 Hz), QuickSIN, distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs), and …

The Impact Of Lingual Resistance Training In Two Individuals With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Case Series, Raele Donetha Robison

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal and progressive disease characterized by the deterioration of motor neurons within the body. This degeneration leads to bulbar dysfunction in the form of an impaired ability to communicate and swallow. Currently, bulbar dysfunction is treated via compensatory methods aimed at maximizing comfort and safety that include environmental adaptations, augmentative and assistive communication and gastrostomy tube placement to replace speech and oral feeding. The role of active intervention is controversial in this patient population and no investigations have examined the potential role lingual exercise might play in ALS bulbar management. The purpose of …

Validity Of A Nonspeech Dynamic Assessment Of Phonological Awareness In Children From Spanish-Speaking Backgrounds, Bianca Angelica Loreti

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Literacy development in Spanish-speaking children is a growing concern in the United States (Invernizzi, 2009). Phonological awareness is a predictor of literacy achievement in most alphabetic languages (Anthony et al., 2011; Davison & Brea-Spahn, 2012; Durgunoğlu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Goikoetxea, 2005). Bilingual children with complex communication needs (CCN) demonstrate increased difficulties in speaking, reading, and writing, making learning two languages a difficult task (Toppelberg, Snow, & Tager-Flusberg, 1999). Literacy attainment in bilingual individuals who have CCN is important to improve their overall language development and communication interaction skills (Harrison-Harris, 2002). A valid and reliable phonological awareness assessment that does …

Recognition And Comprehension Of Speech In Noise In School-Aged Children With Unilateral Hearing Loss, Amanda M. Griffin

Doctoral Dissertations

Sentence recognition and auditory comprehension abilities of young adults with normal hearing (NH) and school-age children with NH and unilateral hearing loss (UHL) were tested in a mixed design. In Experiment 1, subjects’ sentence recognition abilities were measured in the presence of speech spectrum noise (SSN) and two-talker child babble (TTB) in co-located and spatially-separated target and masker configurations. In all conditions, reception thresholds for sentences (RTS) improved with age from six-to 12 years. Speech spectrum noise proved to be a more effective masker than TTB in all listening conditions, suggesting subjects were able to take advantage of temporal and …

Exploring The Conceptual Foundations Of Social Communication In Preschool And School-Aged Children, Kristen H. R. Izaryk

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Introduction: Social communication is a complex and dynamic construct that is an important component of human functioning. However, an agreed upon conceptual understanding of social communication within the field of Speech-Language Pathology has been a persistent challenge. Among main issues that obscure our current understanding are those pertaining to terminology, classification, and the boundaries of social communication within social skill. All three impede the advancement of knowledge and sound clinical application. Therefore, the objective of the current study was to investigate the conceptual foundations of social communication.

Method: Two approaches were taken to begin to address these issues. The Delphi …

Counseling Training For Audiology Students: Using Standardized Patients, Catherine Schroy

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The implementation of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) has resulted in earlier diagnosis of hearing loss in children. Research shows that early diagnosis of hearing loss results in better outcomes in speech and language, socio-emotional, and cognitive development. Early diagnosis, however, often comes as a surprise to parents of newborns. When parents are told their child has a hearing loss, it is often before they have been able to observe behaviors that would lead to the suspicion of hearing loss. Parents are usually told about the hearing loss diagnosis by an audiologist and are often dissatisfied with how the news …

The Effect Of Background Music On The Visual Categorization Of Printed Words In Normal Younger And Older Adults, Sukhada Vaidya Mairal

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Aim: Research has shown that background music, with and without vocal content, has a detrimental effect on cognitive task performance. Research has also shown a decline in processing speed as age increases. The present study seeks to answer the following questions: 1. Will background vocal music have any detrimental effects on performance of a visual semantic word categorization task? 2. Does age have any effect on performance of visual semantic word categorization in the presence of background music?

Participants: Participants consisted of 36 adult native speakers of English with normal speech and language divided in to two groups based on …

Co-Construction Of Personal Narratives In Supporting Identity And Communication In Adults With Aphasia: The ‘My Story’ Project, Katie A. Strong

Dissertations

Stroke and subsequent aphasia can impact a person’s identity negatively, interfering with quality of life. Co-constructing personal narratives about stroke and other aspects of a person’s life is a promising intervention for addressing identity issues. This series of three dissertation studies explored key aspects related to identity, personal narratives, and the perceived impact of telling one’s story.

Study 1 involved a survey examining whether speech-language pathologists view themselves as having a role in supporting the reconstruction of self-identity in adults with aphasia through the use of personal narratives. Results revealed that, whereas the majority of respondents viewed themselves as having …

Parent-To-Parent Support For Parents Of Children Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing: A Conceptual Framework, Rebecca Henderson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Background: Parent-to-parent support for parents with children who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) is identified as an important component of early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) programs for children with hearing loss.

Purpose: The specific aim of this review was to identify the constructs and components of parent-to-parent support for parents of children who are D/HH.

Research Design: An extensive scoping literature review identified 39 peer-reviewed articles published from 2000-2014. Studies were selected and reviewed based on standardized procedures.

Results: Data was identified, extracted and organized into libraries of thematic and descriptive content. A conceptual framework of …

The Relation Between Auditory Integration, Inspection Time, And Language In Children, Rachael E. Smyth

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

It has been proposed that impairment in auditory temporal integration (ATI) may be related to impaired language development in children, although results have been inconsistent. We investigated the relation between ATI and language development and whether it is domain-specific (i.e., isolated to the auditory system) or domain-general (i.e., part of a larger, global processing system) using behavioural measures. We measured ATI and global processing speed using experimental tasks, and language and intelligence using standardized tests, in 26 5-6 year old children with typical development. Results revealed no significant relations between ATI and language, between ATI and global processing speed, or …

The Quality Of Life Among Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Katharine F. Moroney

Masters Theses

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that may affect several aspects of communication, including social and pragmatic functioning. There is a paucity of research in general involving adults with ASD, especially in the United States. Moreover, the strand of research that is significantly lacking involves the quality of life among adults with ASD. While considering the increase in the prevalence of ASD, it is important to empirically investigate the Quality of Life (QoL) of adults with ASD. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines QoL as, “the individual’s perception of their position in life… ranging from the person’s physical …

Do Word-Level Characteristics Predict Spontaneous Finiteness Marking In Specific Language Impairment?, Patrick S. Wilson

Masters Theses

The correct use of morphological suffixes in obligatory contexts reflects linguistic knowledge and competence of speakers. Grammatical knowledge is acquired during a child’s period of primary language acquisition, and may be partial or incomplete due to normal linguistic variation found during acquisition, due to a child’s level of progression through typical chronological development, or due to the presence of language disorders, like specific language impairment (SLI). In the current study, we ask whether characteristics of verbs make it more or less likely that children will correctly use an inflectional morpheme. The morphemes of interest in the current study were third …

Executive Function Predictors Of Children's Talk, Jacqlyne D. Weber

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Relatively few studies have investigated the relationship between executive functioning (EF) and language development, and even fewer have researched hot and cool EF as a predictor language development. This study is an investigation into the relationship between EF and language development in preschool aged children. More specifically, the ability for hot or cool EF to predict language, this will be the focus of the study. It was found that hot EF was a better predictor of language development in preschool aged children.

Increasing Emotion Word Productions In Children With Language Impairment With A Social Communication Intervention, Madelane Kate Dixon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the efficacy of a social communication intervention in increasing the emotion word productions in school-aged children with language impairment (LI). The study had a multiple baseline single subject design in which 5 children between the ages of 6 and 11 received 20 intervention sessions, each lasting 20 minutes. Intervention activities included reading and discussing children's books, enacting the stories using toys, and journal writing to reflect on experiences in each session. Emotion word productions during intervention sessions were coded for total productions within the categories of happiness, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust. Productions were also coded …

Training And Application Of Correct Information Unit Analysis To Structured And Unstructured Discourse, Audrey Bretthauer Cohen

Dissertations and Theses

Correct Information Units (CIU) analysis is one of the few measures of discourse that attempts to quantify discourse as a function of communicating information efficiently. Though this analysis is used reliably as a research tool, most studies' apply CIUs to structured discourse tasks and do not specifically describe how raters are trained. If certified clinical speech-language pathologists can likewise reliably apply CIU analysis within clinical settings to unstructured discourse, such as the discourse of people with aphasia (PWA), it may allow clinicians to quantify the information communicated efficiently in clinical populations with discourse deficits. Purpose: The purpose of this study …

Formant Frequency Transitions In The Fluent Speech Of Adults Who Do And Do Not Stutter: Testing The Over-Reliance On Feedback Hypothesis, Kaitlin Arnold

Masters Theses

A recent theory proposed by Civier and colleagues (Civer et al. 2010; Civer et al. 2013) developed a model of stuttering that implicates a faulty feedforward control system. The hypothesis suggests that stuttering results from relying too heavily on sensory feedback to guide speech movements. An overreliance on sensory feedback would result in subtle anomalies in fluent speech (such as slowed articulatory transitions) as well as overt stuttering behaviors (such as sound repetitions). The present study tested this general hypothesis by comparing articulatory transition rates of adults who do and do not stutter across casual and fast speech rates. Participants …

Automated Grammatical Tagging Of Clinical Language Samples With And Without Salt Coding, Andrea Nielson Hughes

Theses and Dissertations

Language samples are naturalistic sources of information that supersede many of the limitations found in standardized test administration. Although language samples have clinical utility, they are often time intensive. Despite the usefulness of language samples in evaluation and treatment, clinicians may not perform language sample analyses due to the necessary time commitment. Researchers have developed language sample analysis software that automates this process. Coding schemes such as that used by the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software were developed to provide more information regarding appropriate grammatical tag selection. The usefulness of SALT precoding in aiding automated grammatical tagging accuracy …

Establishing Normative Data For Contact Patterns Of Fricative Production By Native German Speakers: An Electropalatography Study, Lisa Diane Isaacson

Theses and Dissertations

Electropalatography (EPG) provides real-time visual biofeedback for linguapalatal contact during speech and swallowing. Historically, EPG has proved to be an effective tool for assessment and treatment of a variety of speech disorders across a wide age range. The present thesis is part of a larger study examining the effectiveness of using EPG in assisting second language (L2) learners to acquire the German fricatives , [x], and //. Real and nonsense word productions were collected from six native German speakers. Electrode activation levels were generally highest for and lowest for [x]. Even when considering the impact of vowel context, [x] consistently …