Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

A Comparison Of The Effectiveness Of Three Language Intervention Strategies: Imitation, Modeling, Combination, Margaret I. Slattery

Masters Theses

The literature on language acquisition and the treatment of language disorders in children has been dominated by two variables. These variables are imitation and modeling. Research regarding the best technique for eliciting, generalizing and changing overall language performance in children has been inconclusive.

This study compared the effectiveness of three language intervention strategies: imitation, modeling, and a combination of imitation and modeling in eliciting and generalizing basic concepts and improving pre and post treatment scores on three standardized tests. Six language delayed kindergarten children served as subjects. The subjects were seen twice a week for five weeks.

No significant differences …

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 …

The Implementation Of A Teacher Referral Behavioral Checklist In The Identification Of Language Processing Deficits, Barbara T. Voss

Masters Theses

The identification of language processing deficits has been acknowledged as a difficult task for the speech/language clinician. The literature has cited certain observable behaviors associated with language processing deficits, but these behaviors are often subtle enough to escape detection during routine speech and language screenings. Therefore, many language processing deficits are not identified until after the children have begun to experience academic struggle and/or failure. Several authors (Chalfant & Foster, 1974; Shepherd, 1982; Wiig & Semel, 1980) have suggested that classroom teachers may be useful in aiding speech/language pathologists in identifying these deficits. The purpose of this study was to …

A Comparison Of Norm-Referenced, Traditional, And Computer-Assisted Language Assessments, Michel P. Helmke

Masters Theses

Current literature in the field of communication disorders suggests that traditional norm-referenced tests may yield erroneous or misleading information regarding a child's level of language acquisition. Additional research suggests that the most valid and reliable technique for determining a client's level of linguistic expertise is language sampling and analysis. Language sampling and analysis has traditionally been rejected as a means of evaluation, especially for the school-age child, due to the length of time necessary to complete such analyses. In recent years, language sampling and analysis techniques have been redesigned as computer software application programs. Computer software application programs may significantly …

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

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Traditional Articulation Tests In Phonological Analysis, Teri L. Moser

Masters Theses

Phonological analysis is an established, comprehensive, and effective means of assessing the speech patterns of unintelligible children. However, many practicing speech-language pathologists have not incorporated this procedure into their diagnostic batteries and continue to use traditional articulation tests because of convenience and familiarity of the tests (Garber, 1984). If articulation tests could be modified to assess phonological simplification processes, speech-language pathologists may be more likely to use this method of speech analysis. The purpose of this study was to determine if traditional articulation tests employing a phonological analysis procedure are a valid measure of phonological simplification processes.

This study compared …

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 …

The Effects Of Language Processing Strategies Upon Reading Comprehension, Kathy Ann Kirby

Masters Theses

In 1975, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed providing educational services for children with exceptionalities. Learning disabilities was one of those exceptionalities whose definition used a language disorder as its major criteria for the identification and classification of a specific learning disabilities. The inclusion of language disorders within its definition brought about greater interest in language and the understanding of language development, acquisition and processing and how these aspects related with academic learning, particularly with reading.

The purpose of this study was to address the issue of language processing strategies in the remediating of language deficits and …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Comparison Of Sentence Completion Procedures For The Elicitation Of Copula And Auxiliary Verb Forms From Three-Year-Old Children, Teresa Ann Muchmore

Masters Theses

Speech pathologists have several formal diagnostic methods available for the analysis of language. A diagnostician may elect to use a non-standardized procedure to supplement formal methods. A clinician-designed procedure can facilitate the transition from test result to treatment plan. Such a procedure may be constructed to account for an individual child's age, strengths, and weaknesses. Previous research has indicated that two types of sentence completion tasks, syntactic elicitation and emphatic elicitation, are effective in the elicitation of copula and auxiliary forms of TO BE from kindergarten children. The purpose of this study was to compare the use of these two …

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 …

The Effects Of Total Communication On The Expressive Language Behavior Of Individuals Labeled Trainable Mentally Retarded, Lenore Aebischer

Masters Theses

The practice of total communication in language training for non-deaf individuals labeled mentally retarded has been guided by very little empirical evidence. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine whether the use of a total communication approach facilitates an increase in the frequency of expressive language behavior in children labeled trainable mentally handicapped. The three subjects studied, one male and two females, were selected on the basis of age and I.Q. They were enrolled in a self-contained, public school which was located in a rural area of Illinois. A multi-element baseline procedure was used. Stimuli were presented using …

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 Use Of Thorsen’S Primary Individual Language Screening Test As A Language Assessment Tool, Susan K. Sanders

Masters Theses

An attempt was made to establish Thorsen's Primary Individual Language Screening Test (PILS) as a valid instrument for screening child language by comparing performance of a kindergarten population on the PILS and the Carrow Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language (TACL). Seventy-five subjects were administered both tests and correlational data was analyzed. If a statistically significant relationship existed, then one could assume that a score on the PILS would predict how one would do on the TACL. Test-retest reliability and intra- and inter-examiner reliability were examined. Discriptive statistical characteristics of the PILS scores and TACL scores were obtained for the …

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 Phonological And Morphological Analysis Of Two-Year Old Children's Utterances Of Final /S/ And /Z/ In Nouns, Janice Brewer

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine, from a phonological and morphological point of view, two-year old children's utterances of final /s/ and final /z/ in singular (CVC) and plural (CVCC) forms.

The subjects were 32 two-year old children who attended day-care centers. There were 13 males and 19 females, ranging in age from 26 months to 36 months, with an average age of 29 months.

In a 16 item test, each of the 32 children named eight singular nouns (/bʌs/, /haus/, /fers/, /maus/, /nouz/, /tʃiz/, /rouz/, /hous/) and eight plural nouns (/kʌps/, /hæts/, /keɪks/, /sɑks/, /bɔlz/, /gʌnz/, /bɛdz/, …

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.

Creative Dramatics As A Language Facilitating Technique, Gail J. Richard

Masters Theses

Children's communication development has attracted a great deal of attention in the last few years. Research has begun to make advances in what we know about children's speech, language, and hearing abilities. It has been proposed that children are most interested (and probably learn most) while playing. As a result, the idea of play therapy gained recognition. Creative dramatics is a specific area or technique that can include a child's play and can incorporate specific language objectives and goals. The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of creative dramatic experiences on the expressive verbal language scores of …

Mapping Interpersonal Communication Behaviors On The Leary Circumplex, Yvonne L. Spaulding

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Variation In Manner Of Oral Reading On The Fluency Of Nonstutterers, Saralynn Scott

Masters Theses

No abstract provided by author.