Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Evaluating The Relationship Between Diadochokinesis And Severity Of Dysphagia As It Relates To Forced Vital Capacity In Individuals With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Arthur Franklin Knack

Wayne State University Dissertations

Purpose: To determine if the severity of dysphagia, as determine by Penetration Aspiration Scale (PAS) ratings and pharyngeal residue scale ratings in individuals with ALS, can be predicted through performance on diadochokinesis (DDK) and force vital capacity (FVC) measures.

This study was designed to evaluate differences in performance of clinical measures and objective swallowing severity ratings between individuals with ALS and a Control group of similar age. The goal of this study was to attempt to develop a clinical assessment battery that can predict swallowing impairment in ALS patients. In addition, potential predictive relationships between dysphagia ratings and other commonly …

Online Communities For People Who Stutter: An Ethnographic Study Of A Facebook Social Networking Support Group, Erik X. Raj

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of people who stutter who digitally connect and share with other people who stutter on a social networking site, specifically Facebook. This study used a qualitative, ethnographic approach to gain insight from members of a private Facebook group for people who stutter and to collect their opinions as to whether an online community was a beneficial means of obtaining psychosocial support from other people who stutter. The primary investigator collected textual data and artifacts from 3 months of Facebook group postings, semi-structured interviews with 7 of the Facebook group members, …

Does Knowledge Of Concussion Symptoms Influence An Athlete's Self-Report Of History Of Concussion Across Age Groups?, John Pfirman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if an athlete's self-report of a history of concussion would increase if they are provided with information about concussions.

Study Design: This study used a group design pre-test information group and a post-test information group matched for age.

Methods: Prior to cognitive testing, the athletes were divided into an experimental and control group. The experimental group received information about concussions before taking the cognitive test. The control group did not receive concussion information before cognitive testing. Both groups completed a questionnaire following testing that asked: "Based on your experience here today, …

Psycholinguistics In Fluency Disorders: Prearticulatory Speech Planning In Stuttering And Cluttering, Emily O’Dell Garnett

Theses and Dissertations

The Covert Repair Hypothesis (CRH) is an account for speech errors in normally fluent speakers, and also hypothesizes errors in the phonological encoding stage in people who stutter (PWS). Previous research has shown that PWS exhibit poorer performance compared to typically fluent adults (TFA) on linguistic tasks designed to tap into the level of phonological encoding, such as phoneme monitoring. Stuttering and cluttering often co-occur, thus the field can benefit from extending this methodology to study people who clutter (PWC). Experiment 1 in Chapter 2 used phoneme monitoring to study phonological encoding in PWS and PWC, with three conclusions: (1) …

High-Definition Tdcs Of Noun And Verb Retrieval In Naming And Lexical Decision, Svetlana Malyutina, Dirk B. Den Ouden

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) is a novel brain stimulation method that has high potential for use in language therapy for speakers with aphasia, due to its safety and focality. This study aimed to obtain foundational data on using HD-tDCS to modulate language processing in healthy speakers. Participants received stimulation either of left Broca’s area or of angular gyrus (20 minutes of anodal, cathodal and sham stimulation on separate days), followed by naming and lexical decision tasks with single-word verb and noun stimuli. We found that cathodal stimulation over both Broca’s area and left angular gyrus increased naming speed …

Treatment Efficacy Of Manual Therapy On Speech Outcomes In Children With Spastic Cerebral Palsy: A Single-Subject Experimental Design, Chantelle B. Varnado

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT Objective – The present study aimed to determine if a treatment effect is present on speech outcomes in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) given 5 sessions of a manual therapy treatment protocol. Methods – A single-subject experimental design (ABAB) study was devised to establish the treatment efficacy of a manual therapy protocol on speech outcomes in children with spastic CP. The protocol was administered to 5 participants, 4-6 years old. It included five intercostal stretches administered in 15-minute sessions for five sessions. During the withdrawal phase, a sham treatment was administered that included an equal dosage of treatment. …

The Effects Of Speech Impairment On Quality Of Life Over Time In Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Jacqueline Kelley Blessinger

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Limited research exists on how speech impairments affect quality of life (QOL) factors over time in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A review of the literature, including the history, disease course, and prevalence of ALS, is presented. Physical and psychosocial functioning, especially the decline of bulbar functioning’s potential impact on QOL factors and communication style, are outlined. This study is a follow-up study on a study by Duff, who found a significant difference in QOL relative to level of bulbar functioning in a cross-sectional design. The current study used a longitudinal design to look at bulbar functioning, specifically levels …

Learning About Aphasia Through Experience: Descriptions Of An Interdisciplinary Patient Centered Seminar, Tyson G. Harmon, Shawn Fleck, Adam Jacks

Faculty Publications

People with aphasia (PWA) have an insider’s perspective that can help educate and motivate students during their clinical training (Parr, 2001; Purves, Petersen, & Puurveen, 2013). Being involved in educating students through life experiences can also benefit PWA. In this article we describe a program wherein three PWA shared their experiences with first year graduate students in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech pathology. The process of preparing, organizing, and executing the program is outlined. One PWA adds his personal insight by describing his participation in the program using his own words. A student leader of the program also adds …

Developmental Surveillance And Referral In A Traditionally Medically Underserved Border Community, Eugenia C. Gonzalez, Connie Summers, Vannesa Mueller, Anne Hernandez, Gilda Gil-Lopez, Danielle C. Garcia, Maritza E. Lopez

Faculty Publications

Purpose Early identification and referral have been shown to improve long-term outcomes for children with disabilities. However, the number of children enrolled in early intervention services continues to be lower than the number of children confirmed to be developmentally delayed later in life. This study investigated the pattern of developmental surveillance and referral practices of pediatricians in a traditionally medically underserved border community. Description An online survey was created by members of a community/academic partnership. Emails were followed up with a personal contact to doctor’s offices to increase the response rate. Assessment Response rate for the survey was 26.7 %. …

Written Discourse Performance After Blast Injury, Brittany M. Loomis

Masters Theses

A blast injury (BI) is caused by a wave from a bomb which damages organs, specifically the brain. Once soldiers/veterans have sustained a BI, they will most likely present with a cognitive-communication deficit resulting from the traumatic brain injury. Language related symptoms are most apparent in written language skills due to the high level of cognitive function required for writing. This study investigated written discourse skills following a BI. Written discourse samples were collected from four participants and four controls. A description of the Butcher Picture from the Aphasia Diagnostic Profile was analyzed for productivity, efficiency, and local and global …

The Effects Of Cued Speech On Phonemic Awareness Skills, Jessica M. Phillips

Masters Theses

Research suggests phonemic awareness is enhanced through multimodality training. Cued Speech is a multimodality system that combines hand signs with mouth movements to represent phonemes of the spoken language. This system has been utilized successfully in developing phonological awareness with children with hearing loss. However, no research is available on its effectiveness with children who are not deaf or hard-of-hearing. The efficacy of the use of Cued Speech for the enhancement of phonological skills in typically developing 1st grade students was evaluated in this study. Twenty-six 1^st graders identified as low-achieving readers by their classroom teachers were administered the …

Accreditation As An Organizational Response: Exploring The Influence Of Leadership And Institutional And Task Environments On The Accreditation Process In Communication Sciences And Disorders Programs, Jeffrey Charles Adams

Theses and Dissertations

Influences on the accreditation process in communication sciences and disorder (CSD) programs were examined using a cross case comparative qualitative analysis among four successfully accredited academic departments in the southern United States. Program chairs, CSD administrators, clinic directors and faculty were interviewed. Four institutional sites were selected for the case studies based upon the outcome of the program’s most recent accreditation site visit, the date of the accreditation site visit, number of available faculty, and institutional type. The four institutions included one master’s granting private institution, one master’s granting (larger) program, one doctoral/research medical university, and one doctoral/research university (very …

Visual Analog Rating Of Mood By People With Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Katarina L. Haley, Jennifer L. Womack, Sharon W. Williams

Faculty Publications

Background:

Considerable attention has been given to the identification of depression in stroke survivors with aphasia, but there is more limited information about other mood states. Visual analog scales are often used to collect subjective information from people with aphasia. However, the validity of these methods for communicating about mood has not been established in people with moderately to severely impaired language.

Objective:

The dual purposes of this study were to characterize the relative endorsement of negative and positive mood states in people with chronic aphasia after stroke and to examine congruent validity for visual analog rating methods for people …

Evaluation Of Teacher Ratings To Improve Child Language Screenings In Speech-Language Pathology, Kyomi Dana Gregory

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher ratings for screening children’s language skills. Teacher ratings were measured through the use of two tools, the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2; Bishop, 2006) and the Teacher Rating of Oral Language and Literacy (TROLL; Dickinson, McCabe, & Sprague, 2001). The data for this study were from 77 kindergarteners who lived in rural Louisiana and spoke a non-mainstream dialect of English; 51 were classified as typically developing and 26 as presenting with Specific Language Impairment. Convergent validity was examined by comparing the two teacher rating tools to each other and …

A Comparison Of The Deaf Community And Hard-Of-Hearing Individuals On Their Knowledge And Opinions Of Cochlear Implants, Marian R. Bryant

Honors Theses

This thesis examined the opinions and knowledge of Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals on cochlear implants. Previous research presented showed the controversial opinions on what was known about cochlear implants as a result of speculation in the Deaf community. This thesis consisted of surveying Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in order to have a better understanding of what is known about cochlear implants and the opinions that concur due to incorrect or correct knowledge. Thirteen subjects, including eight Deaf and seven hard-of-hearing individuals, completed the assessment. The results indicated that uncertainty about cochlear implants still remains; therefore, it is necessary to educate …

Neural Correlates Of Verb Argument Structure Processing, Svetlana Malyutina

Theses and Dissertations

Verb argument structure (VAS) is pivotal to sentence production and comprehension, since it determines participant roles, as well as their grammatical form and syntactic position in a sentence. Neural correlates of VAS processing have mainly been studied in terms of the number of arguments. Data on the neural and behavioral effects of other VAS characteristics are limited, whereas they would have implications for behavioral and brain stimulation treatments of language disorders.

The present research investigated behavioral and neural effects of three understudied VAS characteristics (number of subcategorization options, number of thematic options and number of number-of-argument options) in single-word-level and …

Eye Movements Of Individuals With Aphasia During Reading And Scene Viewing, Kimberly G. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: This project characterized eye movements of individuals with aphasia and age-matched participants during reading and scene viewing.

Methods: Individuals with aphasia (N=24) and age-matched controls participants (N=24) completed three eye tracking studies. Study 1 examined task-related changes in eye movements for scene search, scene memorization, text-reading, and pseudoreading. Ex-Gaussian, analysis of variance, and correlational analyses were used to compare differences in eye movements across tasks and participant groups. Study 2 examined how oculomotor and linguistic processing influence eye movements for textreading and pseudo-reading. In addition to the statistical analyses used in Study 1, four case studies were carried out …