Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

The Efficacy Of A Social Communication Intervention To Increase Syntactic Complexity In Narratives Of Children With Language Impairment, Alexandra Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that children with Language Impairment (LI) struggle with social communication skills in addition to their characteristic syntactic difficulties. This pilot study analyzed the potential change in grammatical complexity in narratives of five children with LI when enrolled in a social communication intervention. The intervention itself focused on teaching emotion understanding by reading and reenacting children’s stories and journaling. Grammatical limitations were indirectly addressed by clinician modeling of complex forms during the intervention sessions. Each child’s productions were assessed and analyzed for grammatical complexity during retelling a book in the Mercer Mayer “a boy, a dog, and a …

The Efficacy Of A Social Communication Intervention On Teacher Report Of Withdrawal For Children With Language Impairment, Allyson Roscher

Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies and literature regarding children with language impairment (LI) indicate that these children have difficulty with social communication skills. This study assessed the effect of a social communication intervention on teacher perceptions of withdrawal in six elementary school age participants with LI. The social communication intervention included story sharing, identifying pictures of facial expressions, and journaling to target emotion understanding. The Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (TBRS) was utilized to measure teacher perception of withdrawal. The TBRS examined three subscales of social withdrawal: solitary-active withdrawal, solitary-passive withdrawal, and reticence. Following treatment, teacher ratings of withdrawn behavior decreased for all six …