Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

The Effect Of Visual Feedback On Vocal Compensation Abilities In Individuals With Post-Stroke Aphasia, Marissa Rylee Olson

Theses and Dissertations

Speech production is a complex and highly organized process comprised of various sensory and perceptual components. Post-stroke aphasia can impair speech production abilities by interrupting individuals’ ability to detect and correct speech errors and produce their targeted behavior. Contemporary models of speech production aim to understand the relationship between sensory systems and the human ability to produce perceptually accurate speech. This study seeks to understand the relationship between visual feedback and vocal compensation abilities in individuals with post-stroke aphasia to determine the effectiveness of incorporating visual feedback into therapeutic expressive language intervention. It was hypothesized that that the multi-sensory experimental …

Biobehavioral Synchrony In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Carly Glenn Moser

Theses and Dissertations

Social communication difficulties are a core feature of autism and are associated with a range of long-term consequences, including persistent deficits in pragmatic language and fewer and poorer quality friendships. High-quality synchronous interactions between parents and their children play a crucial role in children’s social functioning. The theory of biobehavioral synchrony suggests that the dyadic coordination of behavioral and physiological processes is essential to maximally benefit from a communicative exchange. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) serves as an indicator of physiological regulation and is reduced in those with autism; thus, dyadic coordination of RSA may also be impacted and could play …

The Correlation Between Bilingual Children’S Self-Reported Language Proficiency And Their Scores On Dual-Language Standardized Assessments, Andrea Elise Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to evaluate the relation between bilingual Spanish-English speaking children’s self-reported language proficiencies and bilingual experiences and their scores on norm-referenced standardized dual-language assessments. Additionally, the relation between bilingual children’s self-reported language proficiencies and bilingual experiences and parent reports of children’s Spanish and English input and output was examined. The Houston Questionnaire, a novel tool designed to provide insight into bilingual children’s self-perceptions of language proficiencies and experiences, was administered to gather such information for this study. A sample of bilingual children local to Columbia, South Carolina completed a battery of dual-language standardized assessments in kindergarten, and then …

Academic Impacts Of Intergenerational Trauma: Assessing The Relationship Between Ace Scores Of Parents And The Language And Literacy Development Of Their Elementary-Aged Children, Paige Lee Banaszak

Theses and Dissertations

This paper contributes to the current literature by investigating factors that may contribute to language and literacy difficulty among children, to support the future development of effective intervention techniques. The data analyzed in this paper was collected from children and families participating in Reach Every Reader, a research study currently being conducted to improve literacy outcomes in the U.S. by developing a computer-adaptive screening assessment tool to identify children at risk for language and literacy difficulties early in their educational development. Children enrolled in kindergarten through third grade completed tasks that target language and literacy skills, and their parent(s) completed …

Orthographic Knowledge And Phonological Awareness In Children With Speech Sound Disorder, Anna Marie Ehrhorn

Theses and Dissertations

Speech sound disorder (SSD) puts children at risk for word reading difficulties but does not guarantee them. Research on early literacy skills in children with SSD has primarily focused on phonological awareness due to speech sound deficits associated with SSD. Researchers have begun to examine multiple factors beyond phonological awareness that may impact word reading and spelling development. Orthographic knowledge is another essential factor understudied in children with SSD. Previous research has shown that orthographic properties of words influence phonological awareness performance in skilled readers and children with reading difficulties. No known previous studies have examined whether orthography influences phonological …

Behavioral And Neurophysiological Measures Of Speech Auditory Feedback Processing Impairment In Left Hemisphere Stroke, Stacey Sangtian

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify behavioral and neural correlates of impaired speech auditory feedback processing in people with a history of left-hemisphere stroke (LHS). To do this, we used the altered auditory feedback (AAF) paradigm to externally induce speech errors by randomly shifting the pitch frequency of the online auditory feedback up or down at ±100 cents in 38 LHS and 27 neurologically intact control participants under two experimental conditions: 1) active vocalizations of a steady speech vowel sound “ah,” and 2) passive listening to the playback of the same self-produced vocalizations. Randomized control trials were included …

Bias In Measurement Of Autism Symptoms By Spoken Language Level And Non-Verbal Mental Age In Minimally Verbal Children With Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Shuting Zheng, Aaron Kaat, Cristan Farmer, Audrey Thurm, Catherine A. Burrows, Stephen Kanne, Stelios Georgiades, Amy Esler, Catherine Lord, Nicole Takashashi, Kerri P. Nowell, Elizabeth A. Will Ph.D., Jane E. Roberts, Somer L. Bishop

Faculty Publications

Increasing numbers of children with known genetic conditions and/or intellectual disability are referred for evaluation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), highlighting the need to refine autism symptom measures to facilitate differential diagnoses in children with cognitive and language impairments. Previous studies have reported decreased specificity of ASD screening and diagnostic measures in children with intellectual disability. However, little is known about how cognitive and language abilities impact the measurement of specific ASD symptoms in this group. We aggregated a large sample of young children (N = 1196; aged 31-119 months) to examine measurement invariance of ASD symptoms among minimally verbal …

Measuring Orthographic Influences On Phonological Processing In Beginning Readers: An Eyetracking Study, Emily Grace Fisher

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose – Both orthographic and phonemic awareness are essential to reading. However, the role of orthographic knowledge in phonemic awareness has not been thoroughly investigated in beginning readers until recently. The purpose of this study was to examine if orthographic knowledge influenced phonological processing in beginning readers and to establish a proof of concept for the use of eyetracking measures to examine these skills in young children.

Method – 22 participants, aged 6-7 years, completed norm-referenced assessments of language and reading ability as well as experimental measures of orthographic and phonological awareness while their eye movements were monitored.

Results – …

Feasibility And Preliminary Outcomes Of A 6-Week Mindful Walking Program To Maintain And Improve Cognition In Adults At Risk For Alzheimer’S Disease Or Other Related Dementias, Caroline Mannion Wood

Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the impact of a 6-week Mindful Walking intervention. Participants completed 30 minute walking sessions twice a week for 6 weeks. Ten older adults attended 100% of the supervised walking sessions. Pre-post comparison of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and examination of subtests of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment did not reveal a significant change in mean scores (p.05, one-tailed). The number of steps accumulated as a result of Mindful Walking and other activities measured with the ActivPAL and change in MoCA total scores did not reach significance. Generally, the Mindful Walking program was well-liked (4 on a scale …

A Novel Cognitive Stress Paradigm To Assess Subtle Cognitive Differences In Women With The Fmr1 Premutation, Jillian Margaret Gierman

Theses and Dissertations

Fragile X premutation (FXPM) is a genetic mutation of the FMR1 gene characterized by having between 55-200 CGG repetitions. FXPM women are at risk for a variety of reproductive, cognitive, and neuropsychiatric deficits, including fragile X-associated primary ovarian insufficiency (FXPOI) and fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS). FXTAS is a late-onset neurodegenerative disorder characterized by tremor, gait ataxia, cognitive decline, brain atrophy, and deficits in executive functions. With the evidence supporting premature aging, prevalence of cognitive deficits, and risk of developing FXTAS and dementia, it is imperative to find a reliable measure that identifies at-risk FXPM women and their subtle cognitive …

Investigating The Impact Of Nonlinguistic Cognitive Reserve On Naming Pre- And Post-Treatment, Lillian Jarold

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The relationship between linguistic and nonlinguistic cognition in persons with aphasia is complex and often debated in the literature. Furthermore, the impact of nonlinguistic cognition on aphasia treatment outcomes is unclear. The present study sought 1) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and performance on a test of naming and 2) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and change scores on a test of naming between baseline and post-treatment in persons with chronic aphasia.

Method: This retrospective study utilized data from participants (N=102) who were recruited for a multi-center cross-over trial (POLAR: Predicting Outcomes of Language Rehabilitation). …

Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation As An Adjuvant For Nonfluent Aphasia Therapy: A Proof-Of-Concept Study, Lynsey Mcgrath Keator

Theses and Dissertations

Identifying effective and efficient rehabilitation tools is crucial to improve language outcomes for persons living with chronic aphasia. Speech entrainment has proved to be particularly successful in improving speech output in nonfluent aphasia. It is hypothesized that, for patients with aberrant oscillatory synchronization between anterior and posterior language regions of the left hemisphere, speech entrainment may act as an external gaiting mechanism to bolster an impaired efference copy and improve synchrony between these regions. Theoretical and empirical evidence supports this idea that speech production relies on anterior-posterior connectivity in the left hemisphere.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) delivers low, periodically-alternating …

Verbal Inhibition Declines Among Older Women With High Fmr1 Premutation Expansions: A Prospective Study, Nell Maltman, Leann Dawalt, Jinkuk Hong, Audra Sterling, Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, Jessica Klusek, Marsha R. Mailick

Faculty Publications

The FMR1 premutation has been associated with difficulties in executive functioning, including verbal inhibition. However, little is known about the longitudinal profiles of verbal inhibition among FMR1 premutation carriers, particularly in women, and how individual factors such as aging and CGG repeat length may contribute to changes in verbal inhibition over time. The present study examined verbal inhibition performance (i.e., inhibition errors) on the Hayling Sentence Completion Task in a cohort of 92 women with the FMR1 premutation across two timepoints approximately three years apart. We examined the effects of age, CGG repeat length, and their interactions on verbal inhibition …

Tell Or Retell? The Role Of Task And Language In Spanish-English Narrative Microstructure Performance, Mary Claire Wofford, Jessica Cano, Lisa A. Fitton Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Purpose:

This study examined performance of dual language learners (DLLs) on Spanish- and English-language narrative story retells and unique tells. Transcription and analysis focused on comparisons of common microstructural language sample measures in Spanish and English across tasks. Each language sample measure was evaluated for its possible convergence with norm-referenced standardized assessments for DLL children.

Method:

Spanish–English DLLs (N = 133) enrolled in English-only kindergarten or first-grade classrooms completed two-language sample tasks (one in each language), which were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2017) for measures of syntactic complexity (mean length of …

Cluttering In The Speech Of Young Men With Fragile X Syndrome, Katherine Bangert, Kathleen Scaler Scott, Charley Adams, Jessica S. Kisenwether, Lisa Giuffre, Jenna Reed, Angela John Thurman, Leonard Abbeduto, Jessica Klusek

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Cluttering is a fluency disorder that has been noted clinically in individuals with fragile X syndrome (FXS). Yet, cluttering has not been systematically characterized in this population, hindering identification and intervention efforts. This study examined the rates of cluttering in male young adults with FXS using expert clinical opinion, the alignment between expert clinical opinion and objectively quantified features of cluttering from language transcripts, and the association between cluttering and aspects of the FXS phenotype.

Method: Thirty-six men with FXS (aged 18-26 years; M = 22, SD = 2.35) contributed language samples and completed measures of nonverbal cognition, autism …

Family History Of Fxtas Is Associated With Age-Related Cognitive-Linguistic Decline Among Mothers With The Fmr1 Premutation, Jessica Klusek, Amanda Fairchild, Carly Moser, Marsha R. Mailick, Angela John Thurman, Leonard Abbeduto

Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Women who carry a premutation allele of the FMR1 gene are at increased vulnerability to an array of age-related symptoms and disorders, including age-related decline in select cognitive skills. However, the risk factors for age-related decline are poorly understood, including the potential role of family history and genetic factors. In other forms of pathological aging, early decline in syntactic complexity is observed and predicts the later onset of neurodegenerative disease. To shed light on the earliest signs of degeneration, the present study characterized longitudinal changes in the syntactic complexity of women with the FMR1 premutation across midlife, and associations …

Cardiac Startle Response And Clinical Outcomes In Preschool Children With Fragile X Syndrome And Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jordan Ezell, Abigail L. Hogan Phd, Elizabeth A. Will Ph.D., Bcba, Kayla Smith, Jane E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

Objective: Poor physiological regulation in response to threat is linked to multiple negative developmental outcomes including anxiety, which is highly prevalent and impairing in young children with neurodevelopmental disabilities like fragile X syndrome (FXS) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study contrasted cardiac startle response in pre-school-aged children with FXS, with and without ASD, to children with non-syndromic ASD (nsASD) and neurotypical controls (NT). The relationship of cardiac startle to non-verbal mental age (NVMA), ASD severity, and parent-reported anxiety was also examined.

Method: Four age-matched groups of pre-school children participated including those with FXS without ASD (FXS-Only, n = …

Neural Correlates Of Infant Face Processing And Later Emerging Autism Symptoms In Fragile X Syndrome, Maggie W. Guy, John E. Richards, Abigail L. Hogan Ph.D., Jane E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the leading known genetic cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with 60–74% of males with FXS meeting diagnostic criteria for ASD. Infants with FXS have demonstrated atypical neural responses during face processing that are unique from both typically developing, low-risk infants and infants at high familial risk for ASD (i.e., infants siblings of children with ASD). In the current study, event-related potential (ERP) responses during face processing measured at 12 months of age were examined in relation to ASD symptoms measured at ~48 months of age in participants with FXS, as well as siblings of …

Language Variation In The Writing Of African American Students: 6 Factors Predicting Reading Achievement, Lisa Fitton Ph.D., Lakeisha Johnson, Carla Wood, Christopher Schatschneider, Sara A. Hart

Faculty Publications

Purpose

This study aims to examine the predictive relation between measures obtained from African American students' written narrative language samples and reading achievement, as measured by standardized academic assessments.

Method

Written language samples were elicited from 207 African American students in Grades 1–8. The samples were examined for morphosyntactic variations from standardized written Generalized American English (GAE). These variations were categorized as either (a) specific to African American English (AAE) or (b) neutral across AAE and standardized written GAE (i.e., considered ungrammatical both in AAE and in standardized written GAE). Structural equation modeling was employed to then examine the predictive …

The Fmr1 Premutation Phenotype And Mother-Youth Synchrony In Fragile X Syndrome, Carly Moser, Laura Mattie, Leonard Abbeduto, Jessica Klusek

Faculty Publications

A subset of mothers who carry the FMR1 premutation may express a unique phenotype. The relationship between the FMR1 phenotype and mother-child interaction in families with fragile X-associated disorders has not been well characterized, despite the importance of high-quality mother-child interaction for child development. This study examined the association between the FMR1 phenotype and the quality of interactions between mothers and their adolescent/young adult sons with fragile X syndrome. Mother-youth synchrony was coded from a dyadic interaction. Maternal anxiety and depression symptoms, executive function deficits, and pragmatic language difficulties were evaluated. Results indicated that pragmatic language was associated with mother-youth …

Assessing Oral Language When Screening Multilingual Children For Learning Disabilities In Reading, J. Marc Goodrich, Lisa A. Fitton Ph.D., Jessica Chan, C. Jamie Davis

Faculty Publications

Multilingual children represent a rapidly growing population of students in U.S. schools. However, identification of language and learning disabilities for students from different linguistic backgrounds is complex, leading to frequent misidentification of multilingual learners for special education. This article provides guidance on how special education teachers, speech-language pathologists, and other practitioners (e.g., school psychologists) can utilize each other’s expertise to accurately assess language and literacy skills of multilingual learners. Five key lessons learned from research on identification of language disorders are presented, along with discussion of why these are important when screening multilingual children for learning disabilities in reading. Specifically, …

Spoken Word Learning In Children With Developmental Language Disorder Or Dyslexia, Suzanne M. Adlof, Lauren S. Baron, Bethany A. Bell, Joanna Scoggins

Faculty Publications

Purpose Word learning difficulties have been documented in multiple studies involving children with dyslexia and developmental language disorder (DLD; see also specific language impairment). However, no previous studies have directly contrasted word learning in these two frequently co-occurring disorders. We examined word learning in second-grade students with DLD-only and dyslexia-only as compared to each other, peers with both disorders (DLD + dyslexia), and peers with typical development. We hypothesized that children with dyslexia-only and DLD-only would show differences in word learning due to differences in their core language strengths and weaknesses. Method Children ( = 244) were taught eight novel …

Towards Understanding Therapy Response In Chronic Aphasia, Sigfus Kristinsson

Theses and Dissertations

It remains largely unclear what factors determine who responds to aphasia therapy and to what degree. The current study sought to ameliorate this issue by addressing three aims: 1) To identify baseline predictors that dissociate between therapy responders and nonresponders, 2) to identify predictors of degree of treated recovery in therapy responders, and 3) to examine the generalizability of predictors identified under Aims 1 and 2 in randomly selected subsamples of study participants.

Method: Stroke survivors (N = 102; 43 females; age = 60.5y +/- 11.0y) with chronic aphasia (>12m post-stroke) were recruited as part of a multisite trial. …

Verbal Fluency In Women With The Fmr1 Premutation And The Broad Autism Phenotype, Emily Szabo

Theses and Dissertations

Women who carry a premutation allele on the FMR1 gene can experience limitations due to their genetic status, including executive function deficits. These subtle deficits are often shared by women who possess the broad autism phenotype (BAP). Poor understanding and limited research on the extent of these executive functioning deficits has led to limited clinical management of these two groups. The current study aimed to clarity whether there is a difference in verbal fluency abilities in mothers that possess the FMR1 premutation, mothers of children with autism who are at risk for the BAP, and mothers of typically developing children, …

An Analysis Of Mental State Verbs In Children With Hearing Loss, Morgan Vachio

Theses and Dissertations

Mental state verbs (MSV) require unique cognitive and linguistic knowledge compared to lower level function words (Shatz et al., 1983). These cognitive and linguistic demands are thought to be difficult for children with hearing loss (CHL) due to deficits in word learning (Werfel, 2017; Lund, 2016), limited depth of vocabulary knowledge (Walker et al., 2018) and deficits in complex syntax (Werfel et al., 2021). The present study recruited 73 preschool children (23 CHLCI, 22 CHL-HA and 28 CNH) to participate. Our analysis examined the frequency, lexical diversity and use of MSV within required complex syntax structures.

Neural Synchrony During Naturalistic Language Perception In Listeners With Aphasia, Lisa Johnson Norris

Theses and Dissertations

Neural synchrony across listeners during language processing has been found to be associated with successful comprehension in neurotypical adults. At initial presentation of auditory-visual stimuli, neural responses appear to oscillate in different rhythms across brain regions. As the stimulus progresses, the time course of neural activity synchronizes across listeners, particularly in primary auditory and visual processing regions. This phenomenon, which we refer to as ‘neural entrainment,’ has been observed in neurotypical individuals attending to the same stimulus. Neural synchrony occurs due to the inherent neural response elicited by a stimulus and has been shown to be consistent across participants in …

Lexical Properties Of Perceptual Errors Made By Younger And Older Adults Listening To Speech In Multitalker Babble, Hannah Blythe Vickery

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this error analysis was to analyze the lexical properties of misperceptions made when listening to speech in multitalker babble.

Methods: Twenty young adults with normal hearing (YNH), 20 older adults with normal hearing (ONH), and 22 older adults with hearing impairment (OHI) completed a speech-in-babble task. Participants were asked to repeat the final word in 25 high and 25 low context sentences. On each trial, participants either responded with the correct target word, a misperception error, or skipped the trial response. Misperceptions were compiled and analyzed according to their lexical properties.

Results: Results of this study …

Current Approaches To The Treatment Of Post-Stroke Aphasia, Julius Fridriksson Ph.D., Argye Elizabeth Hillis

Faculty Publications

Aphasia, impairment of language after stroke or other neurological insult, is a common and often devastating condition that affects nearly every social activity and interaction. Behavioral speech and language therapy is the mainstay of treatment, although other interventions have been introduced to augment the effects of the behavioral therapy. In this narrative review, we discuss advances in aphasia therapy in the last 5 years and focus primarily on properly powered, randomized, controlled trials of both behavioral therapies and interventions to augment therapy for post-stroke aphasia. These trials include evaluation of behavioral therapies and computer-delivered language therapies. We also discuss outcome …

Maternal Pragmatic Language Difficulties In The Fmr1 Premutation And The Broad Autism Phenotype: Associations With Individual And Family Outcomes, Jessica Klusek, Angela John Thurman, Leonard Abbeduto

Faculty Publications

Broader phenotypes associated with genetic liability, including mild difficulties with pragmatic language skills, have been documented in mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and mothers of children with fragile X syndrome (FXS). This study investigated the relationship between pragmatic difficulties and indicators of maternal well-being and family functioning. Pragmatic difficulty was associated with loneliness in mothers of children with ASD or FXS, and with depression, decreased life satisfaction, and poorer family relationship quality but only in mothers of children with FXS. Results suggest that subtle maternal pragmatic language difficulties are a risk factor that that may contribute to …

Effects Of Personal Fm System Use During Phonological Awareness Instruction For Children At Risk For Dyslexia, Gabriella Rose Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations

Students with reading impairments, including dyslexia, account for the largest proportion of students receiving special education services in the United States (NCES, 2016). Developmental dyslexia is characterized by slow and inaccurate word decoding (Lyon et al., 2003). This word decoding difficulty results from deficits in phonological awareness, a sound-based skill (Swan & Goswami, 1997). Classrooms are known to have high levels of background noise and are inconsistent with recommendations for optimal listening (Picard & Bradley, 2001) or accepted standards (ASHA, n.d.). Furthermore, degraded acoustic conditions have been related to poorer performance on speech-recognition tasks even for children with normal hearing …