Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Semantic Knowledge Use In Discourse Produced By Individuals With Anomic Aphasia, Stephen Kintz, Heather Harris Wright, Gerasimos Fergadiotis

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background---Researchers have demonstrated that people with aphasia (PWA) have preserved semantic knowledge (Dell et al., 1997; Jefferies & Lambon Ralph, 2006). However, Antonucci (2014) demonstrated that some PWA have impaired access to certain types of knowledge more than others. Yet, all these studies used single concepts. It has not been demonstrated whether PWA have difficulty accessing certain types of features within a discourse sample.

Aims—The main goals of this study were to determine if semantic knowledge and two category types were used differently within discourse produced by participants with anomic aphasia and healthy controls.

Method & Procedures—Participants …

Participation In Camp Dream. Speak. Live: Affective And Cognitive Outcomes For Children Who Stutter, Courtney T. Byrd, Elizabeth Hampton, Megann Mcgill, Zoi Gkalitsiou

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of participation in Camp Dream. Speak. Live., an intensive therapy program, on the communication attitudes, peer relationships and quality of life of children who stutter. Method: Participants were 23 children who stutter (n=5 females; n=18 males; age range 4–14 years) who attended a weeklong intensive therapy program that was exclusively developed to address the affective and cognitive components of stuttering. Outcome measures included the KiddyCAT Communication Attitude Test for Preschool and Kindergarten Children who Stutter, the Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering (OASES), and the Patient Reported …

From Grapheme To Phonological Output: Performance Of Adults Who Stutter On A Word Jumble Task, Megann Mcgill, Harvey Sussman, Courtney T. Byrd

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose

The purpose of the present study was to extend previous research by analyzing the ability of adults who stutter to use phonological working memory in conjunction with lexical access to perform a word jumble task.

Method

Forty English words consisting of 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-letters (n = 10 per letter length category) were randomly jumbled using a web-based application. During the experimental task, 26 participants were asked to silently manipulate the scrambled letters to form a real word. Each vocal response was coded for accuracy and speech reaction time (SRT).

Results

Adults who stutter attempted to solve …

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 …

Psychometric Evaluation Of Lexical Diversity Indices: Assessing Length Effects, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Heather Harris Wright, Samuel B. Green

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose—Several novel techniques have been developed recently to assess the breadth of speaker’s vocabulary exhibited in a language sample. The specific aim of this study was to increase our understanding of the validity of the scores generated by different lexical diversity (LD) estimation techniques. Four techniques were explored: D, Maas, Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD), and the Moving Average Type Token Ratio (MATTR).

Method—Four LD indices were estimated for language samples on four discourse tasks (procedures, eventcasts, story retell, and recounts) from 442 neurologically intact adults. The resulting data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Results—The scores on the …

Measuring Global Coherence In Aphasia, V. Galetto, S. Kintz, T. West, Heather Harris Wright, Gerasimos Fergadiotis

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Discourse coherence may be conceptualized as representing the listener's ability to interpret the overall meaning conveyed by the speaker. Discourse schemas serve as the organizing frameworks for placing the essential discourse elements within a language sample (Bloom, Borod, & Santschi-Haywoor, Pick, & Obler, 1996; Peterson & McCabe, 1983). When the essential elements are provided a logical consistency of the discourse schema is maintained and the listener perceives the discourse as coherent (Ditman & Kuperberg, 2010; Trabasso, van den Broek, & Suh, 1989; van den Broek, Virtue, Everson, Tzeng, & Sung, 2002). Global coherence refers to the ability to semantically relate …

Effects Of Truncation On Language Sample Analysis In Aphasia, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Heather Harris Wright

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The goal of this study is to determine if the length of a language sample elicited from a person with aphasia (PWA) is of consequence when making inferences about the patient's functional language ability. When conducting a language sample analysis, a sample representing a snapshot in time is used to make inferences about an individual's language capacity in general. However, current findings are inconclusive regarding the ideal length of the language sample necessary to draw valid conclusions about patients (e.g. Heilman, Nockerts, & Miller, 2010).

Syllabic Patterns In The Early Vocalizations Of Quichua Children, Christina E. Gildersleeve-Neumann, Barbara L. Davis, Peter F. Macneilage

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

To understand the interactions between production patterns common to children regardless of language environment and the early appearance of production effects based on perceptual learning from the ambient language requires the study of languages with diverse phonological properties. Few studies have evaluated early phonological acquisition patterns of children in non-Indo-European language environments. In the current study, across- and within-syllable consonant-vowel co-occurrence patterns in babbling were analyzed for a 6-month period for seven Ecuadorean Quichua learning children who were between 9 and 17 months of age at study onset. Their babbling utterances were compared to the babbling of six English-learning children …

Ethics, Equity, And English-Language Learners: A Decision-Making Framework, Shelly Chabon, Julie Esparza Brown, Christina E. Gildersleeve-Neumann

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

This articles addresses challenges related to clinical decision-making in intervention with English-language learners and their families.

Psychometric Properties Of The Pyramids And Palm Trees Test, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Heather Wright, Gilson Capilouto

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Pyramids and Palm Trees Test (PPT) is a nonverbal measure of semantic memory that has been frequently used in previous aphasia, agnosia, and dementia research. Very little psychometric information regarding the PPT is available. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the PPT in a population of healthy college students. Results indicated that the PPT achieved poor test–retest reliability, failed to obtain adequate internal consistency, and demonstrated poor convergent validity, but showed acceptable discriminant validity. The results of this study suggest that the PPT lacks acceptable reliability and validity for use with a college …

Coherence In Stories Told By Adults With Aphasia, Heather Harris Wright, Anthony Koutsoftas, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Gilson Capilouto

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Discourse coherence is the conceptual organization of discourse and it can be subdivided into two types: global and local. Of interest for the current study is global coherence; that is, how the discourse relates to the overall topic (Glosser & Deser, 1990). Coherence has been measured in persons with aphasia (PWA) using different elicitation tasks (e.g., recounts, story retelling, event-casts) and different scoring methods (ie., rating scales, coherence, violations, total counts) and results have varied across studies (Christianson, 1995; Coelho & Flewellyn, 2003; Glosser & Deser, 1990; Ulatowska, et al., 2004). These differences may reflect differences in how coherence is …

Investigation Of Speech Samples From Typically Developing Preschool Age Children: A Comparison Of Single Words And Imitated Sentences Elicited With The Paba-E, Matthew William Olsen

Dissertations and Theses

Assessment of speech sound production in young children provides the basis for diagnosis and treatment of speech sound disorders. Standardized single-word articulation tests are typically used for identification of speech sound errors because they can provide an efficient means of obtaining a speech sample for analysis and comparison to same-age peers. A major criticism of single-word articulation tests is that they may not accurately reflect speech sound production abilities in conversation. Comparison of performance in single-word and conversational contexts has produced conflicting results in the available research.

The purpose of the present study was to compare speech samples obtained using …

Effects On L1 During Early Acquisition Of L2: Speech Changes In Spanish At First English Contact, Christina E. Gildersleeve-Neumann, Elizabeth D. Peña, Barbara L. Davis, Ellen S. Kester

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Spanish phonological development was examined in six sequential bilingual children at the point of contact with English and eight months later. We explored effects of the English vowel and consonant inventory on Spanish. Children showed a significant increase in consonant cluster accuracy and in vowel errors. These emerging sequential bilingual children showed effects of English on their first language, Spanish. Cross-linguistic transfer did not affect all properties of the phonology equally. Negative transfer may occur in specific areas where the second language is more complex, requiring reorganization of the existing system, as in the transition from the Spanish five-vowel to …

The Acquisition Of Two Phonetic Cues To Word Boundaries, Melissa A. Redford, Christina E. Gildersleeve-Neumann

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The study evaluated whether durational and allophonic cues to word boundaries are intrinsic to syllable production, and so acquired with syllable structure, or whether they are suprasyllabic, and so acquired in phrasal contexts. Twenty preschool children (aged 3 ; 6 and 4 ; 6) produced: (1) single words with simple and complex onsets (e.g. "nail" vs. "snail"); and (2) two-word phrases with intervocalic consonant sequences and varying boundary locations (e.g. "this nail" vs. "bitty snail"). Comparisons between child and adult control productions showed that the durational juncture cue was emergent in the four-year-olds' productions of two-word phrases, but absent elsewhere. …

Noise Induced Hearing Loss In Children: Preventing The Silent Epidemic, William Hal Martin, Judith L. Sobel, Susan E. Griest, Linda Howarth, Shi Yongbing

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Noise-induced hearing loss and related tinnitus are often unrecognized problems, especially in non-occupational settings. Research indicates that increasing numbers of children and adolescents have or are acquiring noise induced hearing losses. Noise induced hearing loss can almost completely be prevented with simple precautionary measures. Educational programs rarely exist outside of those mandated in occupational settings. Health Communication theory can be applied to hearing health for developing effective loss prevention programs. Dangerous Decibels is one example of an effective multi-disciplinary effort to develop and disseminated prevention strategies.

High Frequency Pure Tone Audiometry And High Frequency Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions: A Correlational Analysis, Kimberly J. Lavoie

Dissertations and Theses

Previous studies show that pure tone thresholds are strongly correlated with distortion product otoacoustic emission amplitudes when evaluating the frequency range from 1 to 8 kHz (Avan & Bonfils, 1993). Little is known about correlations between these two measures at higher frequencies from 9-16 kHz. This study compared pure tone thresholds and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) in this high frequency range for 29 normal hearing subjects ages 18-30. Pure tone thresholds were obtained at 250-16 kHz and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) 2,211-17,675 were measured in the same ears. DPOAE amplitudes were measured using a constant F1/F2 ratio of …

An Evaluation Of Families And Service Providers Participating In Participatory Action Research Related To Self-Determination In Young Children With Disabilities, Kristen L. Kozlowski

Dissertations and Theses

The concept of self-determination or "acting as the primary casual agent in one's life and making choices and decisions regarding one's quality of life free from undue external influence or interference" (Wehmeyer, 1996, p.24) has long been a focus of educating adults with disabilities. Recently, researchers and educators have begun to examine teaching foundational skills of self-determination to young children with disabilities. It is important to evaluate programs and methodologies that are said to enhance self-determination in order to ensure their efficacy. Research has examined self-determination programs involving adults and older children, however to date there have been few studies …

The Relationship Of Naming Errors To The Future Diagnosis Of Dementia In Optimally Healthy Young-Old And Oldest-Old Adults, Connie Marie Leasure

Dissertations and Theses

Thirty-nine expository discourse samples were elicited from optimally healthy young-old (65-75 years old) and old-old (85-100 years old) adults in 19990 as part of the longitudinal Oregon Brian Aging Study (OBAS). These samples were analyzed in this study for naming errors.

The purposes of this study were to determine if the ability to name is affected by age, and to determine if naming errors produced by optimally healthy adults correlated with a future diagnosis of dementia. This study attempted to answer the following questions: 1) which age group made the most naming? and 2) which cognitive status group made the …

A Comparison Of Developmental Sentence Scores And Ratings Of Intelligibility, Julie O'Harrow Karnstein

Dissertations and Theses

Speech intelligibility is the term used to describe the degree to which an individual speaker is understood by both familiar and unfamiliar listeners. There are many factors that influence an individual's intelligibility, including (but not limited to) variations in phonology, grammar, rate of speech, and vocal features. Most research has focused on the articulation and phonological influences that impact speech intelligibility. Perhaps for this reason, treatment methods for improving speech intelligibility generally have targeted an individual's phonological production skills. Additional research is necessary to understand more about each of the areas of language production that may be influencing intelligibility. This …

Effects Of Adapted Storybooks On Vocabulary Acquisition Of Children Who Have A Severe Speech Impairment (Ssi), Wendy Ann Peterson

Dissertations and Theses

Research has shown that children who are typically developing have the ability to rapidly learn (fast map) and receptively identify novel vocabulary words presented in the context of storybooks. It has also been shown that repeated exposure to the stories increases the amount of information, or the number of vocabulary words, acquired by the child. Furthermore, studies have shown that children learn more when they are actively rather than passively involved in the learning process. However, little is known about how children who have a severe speech impairment (SSI) fast map new vocabulary in storybook reading contexts, or how active …

Contingencies Governing The Production Of Fricatives, Affricates, And Liquids In Babbling, Christina E. Gildersleeve-Neumann, Barbara L. Davis, Peter F. Macneilage

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Studies of early-developing consonants (stops, nasals, and glides) in babbling have shown that most of the variance in consonants and their associated vowels, both within and between syllables, is due to a "frame" produced by mandibular oscillation, with very little active contribution from intrasyllabic or intersyllabic tongue movements. In a study of four babbling infants, the prediction that this apparently basic "frame dominance" would also apply to late-developing consonants (fricatives, affricates, and liquids) was tested. With minor exceptions, confirming evidence for both the predicted intrasyllabic and intersyllabic patterns was obtained. Results provide further evidence for the frame dominance conception, but …

The Effect Of Using Averaged Versus Custom Real-Ear To Coupler Difference Values In The Desired Sensation Level Approach To Prescribing Hearing Instrument Gain, John Aaron Coverstone

Dissertations and Theses

Because there are many variables and much missing information when fitting young children with hearing instruments, it is necessary to rely on prescriptive procedures such as the Desired Sensation Level (DSL) Method to create target 2cc gain values for ordering and fitting hearing instruments. Inherent in creating 2cc targets is a conversion process known as a real-ear to coupler difference (RECD) measurement. The DSL algorithms make allowances for averaged data to be used in lieu of this measurement.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the validity of using averaged real-ear to coupler difference values included in the DSL …

An Evaluation Of Earobics I In Improving Phonological Awareness In 6- And 7-Year-Old Boys Who Are At-Risk For Reading Disabilities, Wendy Goughnour Gunter

Dissertations and Theses

Earobics Pro PLUS Step I (Earobics I) is a software program designed to increase the auditory processing and phonological awareness skills of children when used in conjunction with traditional intervention. Phonological awareness is the ability to manipulate the sounds of a language and has been shown in previous studies to have a strong relationship with reading ability. Phonological awareness can be taught, and studies have been conducted in an effort to determine effective methods for teaching phonological awareness. No studies have been published on Earobics I to this date.

In this study, the effectiveness of Earobics I was analyzed with …

Effects Of Three Training Components In An Aac Intervention For An Adult With Severe Broca’S Aphasia, Bradley Josef Hendershott

Dissertations and Theses

Individuals with severe nonfluent aphasia may lose functional verbal communication. With the loss of fluent speech, one may also lose the capacity to share in the casual conversation that enriches our lives. A rehabilitative course that seeks to stimulate restoration of verbal abilities can be lengthy with uncertain outcomes. Fortunately, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) interventions have shown promise in treating aphasia by providing non-verbal means of communicating. Communication aids designed around specific topics and comprised of words and pictures have been used by persons with aphasia to participate in conversations. Such aids have shown promise in facilitating successful conversation …

The Effectiveness Of An Accent Reduction Program On Foreign Speaker’S Oral English Proficiency And Understandability, Kara Elizabeth Sewell

Dissertations and Theses

Accent reduction is a program to assist foreign speakers in developing a level of oral English proficiency that is more similar to native English speakers. This study examined whether an accent reduction program, focusing on intonation and articulation, would improve the oral English proficiency and understandability of 2 Vietnamese speakers.

The research questions this study sought to answer were: (a) Does a foreign speaker's oral English proficiency as measured by the Proficiency of Oral English Communication (POEC) subtest scores improve immediately after completion of an accent reduction program?, (b) Does a foreign speaker's POEC subtest scores 4 weeks after termination …

Identification Of Stuttering Moments: Is Hypermedia Training As Effective As Traditional Classroom Instruction?, Johna Delene Wakem

Dissertations and Theses

Significant deficits in clinical preparedness for fluency disorders and computer literacy have been identified through research. A hypermedia program that teaches students how to identify moments of stuttering could address both clinical preparedness issues and computer literacy. It is the purpose of this study to investigate the validity of a hypermedia program as a training tool. Twenty-one college students were divided into 2 groups based on scores from a pre-training assessment task. Group A attended traditional classroom lectures to learn the skill of stuttering identification, whereas Group B used the hypermedia program. All participants were given a post-training video assessment …

Speech Parameters Affects On Social Acceptability Ratings Of Adolescents With Repaired Cleft Lip And/Or Palate, Sarah Telkins Hoff

Dissertations and Theses

The current study explored speech social acceptability ratings of adolescents with and without orofacial clefts. The study utilized speech samples previously collected on 80 adolescents, 40 cleft and 40 noncleft, dubbed on to a stimulus tape in a random order. From an earlier study the following were available: (a) adolescent (cleft and noncleft) self-ratings of speech social acceptability, (b) objective ratings of the adolescents' speech social acceptability provided by a listener panel with no background in speech-language pathology. New data were collected by recruiting a new listener panel of 10 graduate students with training in speech-language pathology, utilizing a 7-point …

The Effectiveness Of Hypermedia Training Vs. Traditional Classroom Instruction In Stuttering, Micheal Dean Baran

Dissertations and Theses

A study by Henri (1994) showed that fluency is one of two areas where speech-language pathology clinicians feel least prepared and Sommers and Caruso (1995) advocated improved training in fluency. The use of computer technology to train students in the field of stuttering has been proven effective in previous studies (Strang, Meyers & Hall, 1989; Tetnowski & Martin, 1996).

The purpose of this study was to further develop a hypermedia training module for stuttering identification and to determine whether this hypermedia training module was as effective as traditional classroom teaching methods.

Subjects in this study were undergraduate students in speech …

The Effect Of Diastema Closure On The Remediation Of Lateral /S/: A Case Study, Reta Price

Dissertations and Theses

An important morphological-marker and one of the most frequently occurring speech sounds in English, the /s/ phoneme is also one of the sounds most often in need of remediation. Often, air emission during /s/ production, a particularly stubborn, often residual production error, is not remediated through traditional treatment methods, and yet the negative effect /s/ distortions have on listeners has been well-documented.

The subject of this investigation was a forty-eightyear-old male who received treatment for a lateralized /s/ during grade-school. It was hypothesized that his exerting high anterior pressure to prevent air from escaping from a diastema between his two …

Speech Production Patterns Following Management Of Velopharyngeal Inadequacy, Debra Lynn Childs

Dissertations and Theses

This descriptive study investigated the pattern of speech sound production before and after surgical management of velopharyngeal inadequacy in two subjects. The research questions asked were: (a) What type of speech patterns do subjects referred for surgical management of velopharyngeal incompetence demonstrate presurgically? (b) What changes in the speech patterns of the subjects are observed in the immediate month following surgery for velopharyngeal incompetence? (c) Do these changes settle into a stabilized pattern of speech production by 4 months postsurgery?

The subjects' speech productions were audio recorded for analysis using the Broen CVC Probe to obtain imitated single word elicitations …