Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Characteristics And Causal Factors For The Receptive-Expressive Gap In Typically Developed Spanish-English Adult Bilinguals, Rachael Janelle Javaherian

LSU Master's Theses

A receptive-expressive language gap occurs when a standardized receptive score is statistically greater than an expressive score in either a primary or a second language. In bilingual children, gap studies already exist for determining language impairment. In adults, there are few studies; nevertheless, one needs to distinguish between typical language patterns of bilingualism due to non-pathological loss of L1 skills versus problems resulting from accidents, disease, or age. To this end, the present study attempted to expand findings of studies by Gibson et al. (2012 and 2014) that focused on analysis of the gap and possible factors influencing its existence …

Characterizing Receptive Vocabulary Knowledge In Minimally Verbal Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Allison Menting

LSU Master's Theses

Background: Delayed or impaired language skills are common characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Currently, there is little research examining the receptive language profile in children with ASD, and even less is known about children with ASD who are minimally verbal. The current study aimed to characterize the receptive vocabulary profile of minimally verbal children with ASD and to examine whether this profile differs from their typically developing peers. Methods: Participants included 31 minimally verbal children with ASD, aged 60-118 months, who were reported to produce between 0-10 words, 124 typical developing toddlers, aged 9-14 months, who were …

Voice Therapy: Racial Disparities In Adherence And Clinically Significant Outcomes, Amber D. Burks

LSU Master's Theses

Voice therapy is evidence-based, behavioral intervention that can reduce functional and organic voice disorders. Despite its proven effectiveness, non-adherence to voice therapy is still an issue. Research shows that an estimated 65% of patients who initiate voice therapy drop out before reaching therapeutic goals. Voice therapy outcomes are largely dependent on patients’ adherence to treatment regimens, but there is limited information concerning factors that may be associated with voice therapy adherence and therapeutic outcomes for patients who successfully complete voice therapy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate which demographic factors could be associated with higher adherence rates to …

Brown's Stages Of Morphosyntactic Development Applied To The Typical Development Of Italian, Marie Laiche

LSU Master's Theses

Background: In A First Language (1973), Roger Brown called for an increase in crosslinguistic data and analysis of morphosyntax across languages as more research in this field is crucial for working out the overarching determinants of language acquisition order and for the ability to accurately compare child language acquisition across different languages. An increase in this research would benefit linguistic researchers and speech-language-pathologists offering services to or evaluating children speaking a different language or more than one language. The current study seeks to add to the field of crosslinguistic research by adapting Brown’s guidelines of English language acquisition to the …