Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Story Writing By Students With Hearing Impairments, Lois A. Ketchum

Masters Theses

Students with hearing impairments (N = 21) wrote a personal narrative each academic year from 1990 to 1992. These narratives were rated on maturity of the story as a whole and maturity of the language used in the story by senior undergraduate students in the education department at Western Michigan University. The method used for rating was a holistic magnitude estimation technique.

Significant change over time was found for story scores, but not language scores. Grade level was found to have no significant effect on change from first to last ratings for either story scores or language scores. Degree of …

Acoustic And Perceptual Correlates Of Breathy Vocal Quality, Ronald Allen Cleveland

Masters Theses

Recordings were made of seven normal female and eight normal male talkers producing sustained vowels under normal, moderately breathy, and very breathy conditions. Twenty listeners judged the recorded vowel tokens for degree of breathiness using a direct magnitude estimation procedure. A Cronbach coefficient alpha revealed strong intrasubject agreement.

Several acoustic analyses were evaluated by measuring their correlations with the mean of the listeners' breathiness ratings. Measures of cepstral peak prominence in band limited signals were most strongly correlated with perceived breathiness. The height of the autocorrelation peak in highpass filtered signals and the relative amplitude of the first harmonic were …

Time Delay Neural Networks And Speech Recognition: Context Independence Of Stops In Different Vowel Environments, Gregory Andrew Makowski

Masters Theses

A series of speech recognition experiments was conducted to investigate time-dynamic speech recognition of stop consonants invariant of vowel environment using data from six talkers. The speech preprocessing was based on previous studies investigating acoustic characteristics which correlate to the place of articulation (Blumstein and Stevens 1979). The place of articulation features were statistically abstracted using four moments and the energy level of the speech sample.

Both statistical and neural network pattern recognition methods were used. Statistical methods included linear and quadratic discriminant functions, maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and K-nearest neighbors (KNN). The neural network approach used was Time Delay …

An Investigation Of Three Strategies To Enhance Generalization Of Conversational Skills, Janice Ann Cain

Masters Theses

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of three strategies to enhance generalization of taught conversational skills: (1) multiple and varied scenarios, (2) multiple conversational partners, and (3) homework assignments. A multiple baseline across behaviors design tested whether the initial training package produced generalization to the probe sessions and whether the addition of homework would produce greater generalization to the probe sessions compared to that observed during the initial training. Four adults, one male and three female, ranging in age from 20-64 years served as subjects. Skills were taught using a combination of coaching, modeling, behavioral …

Acoustic Characteristics Of Vowels Produced By Men, Women And Children, Laura Arlene Getty

Masters Theses

This investigation was a replication and extension of Peterson and Barney’s (1952) research on the acoustics and perception of vowels. This study explored the acoustic characteristics of 12 vowels produced by 50 men, 50 women and 41 children. Speech samples were tape recorded as subjects read lists of words and isolated vowels. Speech samples were digitized. Speech waveforms, spectrograms and formant frequencies were examined and measured.

The average formant frequency values were similar but not identical to the values reported by Peterson and Barney (1952). The largest discrepancy between the two studies was the degree of overlap among vowel categories, …

Analogical Reasoning Of Elderly Adults Using Three Modalities: Words, Pictures, And Figures, Judy L. Rau

Masters Theses

This study examined the analogical processing skills of elderly adults. Forty-seven subjects (ages 65-90) completed analogy tasks presented in three modalities: words, pictures, and geometric figures (90 total). The subjects for this study were elderly adults living independently in a federally subsidized apartment building. The subjects used in this study possessed characteristics similar to the "typical" American adult. Results indicated that performance does not vary significantly with age in the word and picture modalities. Significant (p < .05) negative relationships were found between performance on the geometric figure analogies and increased age and between overall performance and increased age. Significant (p < .05) positive relationships were found between education and performance on each of the three modalities as well as between education and overall performance.

Perceptual Effects Of Perturbation And Additive Noise, Richard E. Nero

Masters Theses

This study investigated the perceptual effects of varying glottal waveshape perturbation, duty cycle perturbation, jitter, signal-to-noise ratio perturbation, and shimmer at three levels of perceived magnitude (high, medium, and low). Voice signals were synthesized using a modified version of Klatt's (1980) formant synthesizer. Listeners rated signal dysphonia using an A-B dissimilarity procedure. Multidimensional scaling analysis suggested that signals judged low in magnitude of dysphonia were perceived to be most similar. Medium-level and high-level magnitude signals were judged to be respectively less similar. Signals varying in duty cycle and fundamental frequency perturbation were perceived to be very similar while those signals …

Teacher And Student Discourse Variables In Academic Communication, Janet M. Sturm

Masters Theses

This study was designed to analyze the oral communication exchanges between first, third, and fifth grade teachers and their students. It was based on the hypothesis that discourse parameters of linguistic quantity and complexity and communication acts change over grade level, much as the discourse parameters of caregivers with young children have been found to do. The language of teachers and students in 15 classrooms was examined by measuring 6 form and quantity variables and 11 communication act variables. Results showed significant differences for some form variables (MLU, mazes, and Type-token ratio) and some communication acts (convey content, mark content, …

Speech Pathology And Audiology At Western: A Brief History, Charles Van Riper, Frank B. Robinson

Histories of Western Michigan University

This historical telling of Western Michigan University's Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences was written by Dr. Charles Van Riper and Dr. Frank B. Robinson. The brief history describes how Dr. Van Riper built a clinic and developed fledgling profession of speech pathology. Hired in 1936 by Dr. Sangren, Van Riper used his skills as a clinician and as a gifted teacher to recruit students, design courses and acquaint the public with the services offered at a mobile speech clinic. By 1938, the first students majoring in “speech correction” were graduated and employed in public schools. By 1939, the …

An Investigation Of Pitch Perturbation And Vocal Intensity Characteristics Of Stutterers And Nonstutterers, Carmen M. Bamberg

Masters Theses

Pitch and amplitude perturbation values were compared for nine adult stutterers and nine adult nonstutterers. Each subject produced ten sustained phonations of the vowels /a/ and /i/. An automatic pitch-synchronous autocorrelation fundamental frequency tracker was used to extract period and amplitude measures.

Findings revealed that: (a) stutterers had significantly more vocal shimmer than nonstutterers (p = .01), (b) F-ratios for percent jitter between groups approached (p = .07) but did not reach significance, and (c) the vowel /a/ was produced with higher levels of jitter and shimmer than the vowel /i/. Results support the notion that instability of the …

Effects Of Intervention On The Ability Of Students With Hearing Impairments To Write Personal Narrative Stories, Beth L. Miller

Masters Theses

This study was designed to determine whether students with hearing impairments could be taught to write more mature personal narrative stories. An experimental group of junior high students received intervention focused on teaching the elements of story grammar and their application to the students' written narrative stories. A matched control group of students spent equal time with the researcher and received intervention focused on improvement of basic language skills. Pretest, posttest-1, posttest-2, and generalization samples were taken. Students' metatextual skills for telling how to write a story were also probed.

A significant difference was found between the experimental and control …

The Effects Of Unilateral Brain Damage On Analogical Reasoning By Stroke Patients, Letitia Lynn Gillespie

Masters Theses

This study examined the ability of individuals with unilateral left hemisphere damage (LHD) and right hemisphere damage (RHD) to complete multiple modality analogy tasks. Four groups, for a total of 46 subjects--12 LHD patients, 8 RHD patients, 20 child control subjects, and 6 adult control subjects--performed word, figure, and picture analogies. The combined non brain damaged control groups performed significantly better than the combined brain damaged experimental groups on the combined analogy tasks. No significant difference was found between the LHD and RHD groups on the combined analogy tasks. The modalities of analogical reasoning tasks did not differentially affect the …

Auditory Temporal Processing Abilities Of Autistic Children, Theresa L. Bender

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Speaking Rate Effects On Language Comprehension By Autistic Children, Cheryl Ann Lehr

Masters Theses

This was a study of language comprehension abilities of autistic children who were between 6 and 12 years of age. The 22 subjects were assigned to either a middle functioning (N=14) or high functioning (N=8) group, based primarily on I.Q. scores. The subjects in the two groups each heard four sets of ten sentences divided into two levels of difficulty at four, electronically controlled speaking rates (McCroskey, 1984).

Results of multifactor ANOVA (Winer, 1971) showed language comprehension to be affected by functioning group, sentence difficulty and interactions of sentence difficulty with speaking rate. Speaking rate had an effect on language …

Speech Results Following Modified Pharyngeal Flap Surgery, Karen S. Zalewski

Masters Theses

It is the purpose of this study to provide a descriptive analysis of 13 patients who have undergone a modified pharyngeal flap surgery completed by one plastic surgeon. Variables associated with the speech of these individuals were based on four measures, including a questionnaire, the Iowa Pressure Articulation Test, the screening portion of the Templin-Darley Test of Articulation, and listener ratings of audio-taped post-surgical speech samples.

Of the eight subject variables studied, two variables were found to be closely associated with speech results. These variables included number of surgeries performed on subjects and number of years in speech therapy. The …

Reliability And Validity Of The Black English Sentence Scoring System, Yvette D. Hyter

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess the concurrent validity and interscorer reliability of a specific diagnostic tool of language assessment which is designed to be nonbiased for dialectally different children. Black English Sentence Scoring (BESS; Nelson, 1983), which is based on Lee's (1974) Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS), is a system for analyzing spontaneous language samples that gives cred it for the normally developing features of Black English dialect. The sample consisted of 17 children between three and seven years who were residing in Michigan in communities where Black English was spoken frequently. All were identified as having language …

Mothers' Intervention Strategies In A Structured Question-Answer Dialogue, Marcia C. Hill

Masters Theses

Language intervention strategies of the mothers of ten normal and ten language-impaired children were compared. An experimenter asked each child questions of varying difficulty about a storybook, in the presence of the mother, who was free to help her child as needed. Both the children's and mothers' utterances were coded. The frequency and types of mothers' strategies were analyzed. The analysis revealed that mothers of normal children intervened significantly more often than mothers of language -impaired children, when all interventions were considered. However, the differences were not significant when only interventions related directly to the predetermined questions were considered. The …

Rhythmicity, Rate, And Perceived Effort Level Of Fluent And Disfluent Children And Their Parents, Lorraine Destefano Proctor

Masters Theses

Finger tapping and CVC syllable repetition measures of 7 four to eight year old fluent and disfluent children and their mothers were evaluated. Perceptual ratings of speech rate and effort level were also completed by the children, their mothers, and nine graduate students. These procedures were used to test hypotheses that mean interval durations for tapping and for speech, and perceptual ratings of speech rate and effort level are individual in nature.

Results indicated that the subjects1 measures of mean interval durations for tapping and for speech as estimates of rhythmicity, and perceptual ratings of speech rate and effort level …

A Histopathological Assessment Of The Effects Of Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetes On The Ears Of Chinese Hamsters, Karen Ailsworth

Masters Theses

Research has produced evidence associating progressive, bilateral, sensorineural hearing loss with diabetes mellitus in human and animal subjects. The microangiopathy which is presumably the cause of hearing loss appears similar to the microangiopathy leading to retinal and renal atrophy.

In the present study the temporal bones of six streptozotocininduced diabetic Chinese hamsters and six nondiabetic Chinese hamsters were histologically processed. Sections stained with hematoxylin and eosin were assessed for total auditory and vestibular otopathology and revealed no statistically significant differences between the two groups. Sections stained with periodic acid-Schiff's were evaluated for vascular basement membrane changes and revealed no statistically …

Vocal Pitch Range And Habitual Pitch Level: The Study Of Normal College Age Speakers, Patricia Jo Huss

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to compare the relationship between the habitual speaking pitch levels and the total pitch ranges.of 15 male and 15 female normal young adults and to compare these relationships to those which have been reported previously for male and female superior speakers. The difference between normal male and normal female speakers was significant, as was the difference between normal male speakers and superior male speakers. The difference between normal female speakers and superior female speakers was non-significant.

A Hearing Assessment Using Operant Audiological Testing With A Severely Retarded Deaf-Blind Child, Patricia Timpson

Masters Theses

This study assessed the feasibility of teaching a 7-year-old severely retarded, hearing and vision impaired girl to respond consistently to a pure tone stimulus using operant audiometric techniques. The experimenter first shaped a head turn response using the opportunity to rock on a rocking horse as reinforcement. Following response shaping, the experimenter used a bone conduction transducer (BCT) as a tactile stimulus in training the subject to turn her head to the left in a similar fashion to a 500 Hz, 65 dB tone/vibration. After 15 days of transfer training, designed to bring the left head turn response under control …

Intelligibility Of Speech Produced With An Artificial Larynx At Various Frequencies, Sandra Arlene Merritt

Masters Theses

Word intelligibility scores of 21 listeners were used to test the hypothesis that speech intelligibility will vary systematically across speakers and fundamental frequency of electrolarynx vibration.

Twenty-one listeners transcribed audio recorded lists of CVC utterances produced with an electrolarynx by 3 speakers at each of five fundamental frequencies.

Comparative analysis of scores across frequencies and speakers were discussed in terms of:

a) source transmission characteristics of "electrolaryngeal" speech, b) implications for diagnosis/therapeusis of alaryngeal speakers.

Results indicated that intelligibility scores were significantly different between speakers and between frequencies within speakers. Maximum intelligibility scores were more highly correlated with certain frequencies …

Magnitude Estimation Of The Quality And Intelligibility Of Degraded Speech, Theresa Smith

Masters Theses

The purpose of the study was to identify within-group and between-group differences in perceived quality and perceived intelligibility of degraded speech for listeners with normal and impaired hearing. Following a visual magnitude estimation task, 10 subjects with normal hearing and 10 subjects with sensory-neural hearing impairment listened to connected speech samples degraded by seven levels of harmonic distortion and estimated the magnitude of their quality and intelligibility. Log average quality estimates and log average intelligibility estimates varied linearly with log degradation values for each group. The slopes of the log-log functions were interpreted as measures of perceptual sensitivity. Slopes for …

A Comparison Of Overall Verb Complexity Between Aphasic Adults And Language Disordered Children, Cheri Suzanne Carrico

Masters Theses

In this investigation, no difference in the overall complexity of verbs produced in spontaneous speech existed between adults and children with primarily expressive language disorders. Six adults, four males and two females between 37;1 and 68;7 years of age, and eight children, five males and three females between 4;3 and 8;3 years of age, comprised the subjects. Each had essentially intact receptive language skills, but was deficient in expressive language abilities. None evidenced a history of hearing, mental or emotional deficits.

Spontaneous language samples elicited from each subject were scored using the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) procedure (Lee, 1974). Marginal, …

The Invisible Isolation Of Deaf Women: Its Effect On Social Awareness, Gaylene Becker, Joanne Jauregui

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The place of deaf women in relation to society is discussed, and the formative experiences that shape their personal development are described. Deaf women's needs are delineated, and suggestions are made for providers to meet these needs.

The Effect Of Vowel Context On Consonantal Intraoral Air Pressure, Michael Karnell

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Prelinguistic Communication Of Down's Syndrome Infants As Compared To Their Normal Peers, Carol Ann Resch

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Total Communication And Traditional Speech Training Methods With Hearing Noncommunicating, Severely Mentally Retarded Individuals, Michael E. Wells

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Descriptive Analysis Of Individuals With Congenital Palatal Insufficiency, Judith Dabkowski

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Auditory Discrimination Of Pitch Differences Among Pure Tone And Voice Stimuli, Demetria Bilycia

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.