Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Investigating Speech-Language Pathologists’ Perceptions On Bilingual/Multilingual Aac Intervention And Quality Of Care, Lillian D. Griffith

Communication Disorders and Occupational Therapy Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study examined U.S.-based speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) perceptions of bilingual/multilingual AAC service provision and the barriers SLPs encounter to determine if SLP beliefs align with practices. An anonymous survey was distributed to 307 ASHA-certified SLPs, resulting in 21 completed responses. The survey consisted of questions that gathered information on participant demographics, caseload, perceptions/beliefs, and practices, with optional open-ended questions for additional context. SLPs in the participant sample strongly believed that AAC intervention should occur in all the languages spoken by the client. Despite this belief, they struggled to implement it due to barriers. Key barriers identified included SLP language limitations, …

Coaching Bilingual Speech-Language Student Clinicians And Spanish-Speaking Caregivers To Use Culturally Adapted Ndbi Techniques For Autistic Preschoolers, Richelle R. Mcguire

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

This study used a cascading coaching model to train bilingual speech-language pathology graduate students and Spanish-speaking caregivers to implement naturalistic developmental behavioral intervention (NDBI) strategies with autistic preschoolers. Two triads, each including a student clinician, minimally vocal child with autism, and caregiver, participated. A monolingual instructor coached student clinicians in culturally adapted NDBI techniques, who then coached caregivers in Spanish. A mixed methods approach evaluated outcomes through single-case experimental design and qualitative interviews. All adult participants increased their use of targeted NDBI skills, with large to very large effect sizes. Qualitative findings suggested areas for improvement (e.g., need for more …

Biliteracy Development Of Spanish-English Bilingual Children: A Closer Look Into The Role Of Morphological Awareness, Grace Morgan, Jamie Smith

Graduate Independent Studies - Communication Sciences and Disorders

No abstract provided.

Working With Bilingual Populations: Clinical Practices Of Speech-Language Pathologists In New Mexico, Wylie L. Skillman

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

New Mexico is uniquely positioned as a state that has more bilingual speakers than the United States on average, meaning that Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) here are more likely to work with bilingual speakers than elsewhere. Best practices for bilingual evaluation and treatment are taught in graduate education for SLPs but the extent to which they are known and utilized by school-based SLPs differs based on many factors.

As the body of research supporting culturally responsive bilingual assessment and intervention continue to grow, it is unknown how or if clinicians are using this knowledge to assess and treat students who …

How Phonological And Syntactic Overlap Impact Cognate Processing Speeds In Bilinguals, Ella Marie Peterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This paper investigates individuals who are proficient in two languages (bilinguals) and the speeds at which bilinguals process cognates (words with comparable form and meaning across languages). This paper cites two ongoing experiments: The Language Identification (LID) task and the Self-Paced Listening (SPL) task. Findings from the LID suggest that phonological overlap in cognates facilitates bilingual language processing speeds, when cognates are presented in isolation. Findings from the SPL suggest that syntactic overlap in cognates also facilitates bilingual language processing speeds, when cognates are presented in sentences. These findings are significant in that the tasks present cognates to participants in …

The Correlation Between Bilingual Children’S Self-Reported Language Proficiency And Their Scores On Dual-Language Standardized Assessments, Andrea Elise Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to evaluate the relation between bilingual Spanish-English speaking children’s self-reported language proficiencies and bilingual experiences and their scores on norm-referenced standardized dual-language assessments. Additionally, the relation between bilingual children’s self-reported language proficiencies and bilingual experiences and parent reports of children’s Spanish and English input and output was examined. The Houston Questionnaire, a novel tool designed to provide insight into bilingual children’s self-perceptions of language proficiencies and experiences, was administered to gather such information for this study. A sample of bilingual children local to Columbia, South Carolina completed a battery of dual-language standardized assessments in kindergarten, and then …

Establishing Cueing Skills When Treating Bilingual Speech Sound Disorders, Carlos D. Irizarry-Pérez, Mirza J. Lugo-Neris, Andrea Martinez-Fisher

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Purpose: This study sought to train cueing skills in first-year graduate students when working with bilingual children with speech sound disorders to ensure fidelity of intervention of a larger research investigation.

Method: Before explicitly training cueing skills, three students were randomly assigned bilingual clients that had been previously diagnosed with a speech sound disorder and asked to administer trial therapy. During the instructional phase, we gave students a cueing protocol, a scoring template, and feedback. We assessed performance according to challenge-point criteria and adherence to our cueing protocol.

Results: Performance varied per student, but overall scores were higher during the …

Multilingualism And Augmentative Alternative Communication: A Review Of The Literature, Hannah N. Lamarca, Natalie R. Andzik

Honors Capstones

Purpose: Individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) are often offered English-only AAC systems that do not meet their language needs. Devices that host multiple languages often only offer one at a time.

Method: The authors reviewed the literature by searching relevant databases using a variety of search strings. Following our inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, 15 articles were yielded for analysis.

Results: Authors found that more than half of the included articles were discussion-based papers on AAC delivery, barriers to AAC and multilingualism, and codeswitching using AAC. The included interview studies aimed to …

Early Intervention Speech-Language Pathologists’ Knowledge, Beliefs, And Practices Surrounding Culturally And Linguistically Responsive Assessment Practices For Dual Language Learners, Rebecca Lynne Jarzynski

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Early intervention (EI) speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are required to provide culturally and linguistically responsive assessments for dual language learners (DLLs) within an increasingly diverse population. Previous research has documented gaps between SLPs’ beliefs related to assessments for DLLs and their implementation of best practices within school-based and pediatric outpatient settings. The purpose of this present research study was to better understand the current knowledge, beliefs, and practices of EI SLPs in relation to the use of culturally and linguistically responsive assessment practices within the context of EI programs. A total of 134 EI SLPs completed a nationwide survey in which …

Cross-Language Generalization In Language Treatment Of Multilingual Aphasia: A Meta-Analysis, Mira Goral, Monica I. Norvik, Jan Antfolk, Ioulia Agrotou, Minna Lehtonen

Publications and Research

Studies on the efficacy of language treatment for multilingual people with post-stroke aphasia and its generalization to untreated languages have produced mixed results. We conducted a systematic review and a meta- analysis to examine within- and cross-language treatment effects and the variables that affect them. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Google Scholar (February 2020; January 2023), identifying 40 studies reporting on 1573 effect sizes from 85 individuals. We synthesized effect sizes for treatment outcomes using a multi-level model to correct for multiple observations from the same individuals. The results showed significant treatment effects, with robust within-language treatment effects and …

Professional Perspectives On Bilingualism In Persons With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study, Rosa N. Benavidez Saldivar, Jessica R. Stewart, Ruth Crutchfield, Roy K. Chen, Lily Puente

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Purpose: The present study examined the perspectives of professionals regarding bilingualism and ASD. Methods: A total of 27 professionals participated in this study. Data was collected via an online survey. The survey was designed based on a literature review and consultation with a team of experts in the field of ASD. Information relating to demographic information, professional practice information, and perspectives of bilingualism and ASD was collected. Results: Professionals participating in the present study were most likely to agree with the statement, “A child with ASD from a bilingual household is able to understand both languages” and least likely to …

The Analysis Of Omission And Substitution Errors In Various Language Tasks In Bilingual Children, Macy Whiting

Theses and Dissertations

As the population of Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States steadily grows, the importance of accurately assessing and diagnosing developmental language disorder (DLD) has also grown. Understanding a child's underlying language learning system is critical in this process. Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of nonword repetition (NWR) tasks in bilingual children across a wide range of development, however there is little information regarding guidelines for interpretation of NWR performance or analyzing error patterns. This study was conducted to address these gaps in the research. A sample of 26 Spanish-English bilingual school aged children (6;0-9;4) were administered English and …

Tell Or Retell? The Role Of Task And Language In Spanish-English Narrative Microstructure Performance, Mary Claire Wofford, Jessica Cano, Lisa A. Fitton Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Purpose:

This study examined performance of dual language learners (DLLs) on Spanish- and English-language narrative story retells and unique tells. Transcription and analysis focused on comparisons of common microstructural language sample measures in Spanish and English across tasks. Each language sample measure was evaluated for its possible convergence with norm-referenced standardized assessments for DLL children.

Method:

Spanish–English DLLs (N = 133) enrolled in English-only kindergarten or first-grade classrooms completed two-language sample tasks (one in each language), which were transcribed and analyzed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (Miller & Iglesias, 2017) for measures of syntactic complexity (mean length of …

Comparing Measures Of Phonological Development For Bilingual Speech Sample Analysis: A Descriptive Study, Julianna Ciccarelli

Honors Projects

The present study analyzed two common measures of phonology for use within a bilingual (Spanish-English) preschool population. The utilized measures include Percentage of Consonants Correct-Revised (PCC-R) and Phonological Mean Length of Utterance (pMLU) and were selected to avoid sources of bias, often found in standardized, norm-referenced assessments. The scores calculated from these measures were analyzed across language.

What Can Aphasia Tell Us About How The First-Acquired Language Is Instantiated In The Brain?, Mira Goral

Publications and Research

Recent neurolinguistic theories converge on the hypothesis that the languages of multilingual people are processed as one system in the brain. One system for the multiple languages is also at the core of a translanguaging framework of multilingualism—a framework that focuses on each speaker’s complete linguistic repertoire rather than on the separate languages they know. However, evidence from neuroimaging studies suggests at least some nonoverlapping activations of the first-acquired language (L1) and other (non-L1) languages of multilingual people, especially when the age of acquisition and/or levels of proficiency differ across the languages. Neurolinguistic studies of acquired language disorders have demonstrated …

Mazes In Spanish-English Dual Language Learners After Language Enrichment: A Case Study, Casey L. Taliancich-Klinger, Connie Summers, Kai J. Greene

Faculty Publications

ABSTRACTThe number of Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in the United States continues toincrease every year. In the absence of developmental language norms for DLLs it is importantto learn more about typical language production characteristics to distinguish typical fromatypical language characteristics. An area of language production with conflicting results inthe literature is the production of mazes. Mazes are interruptions in the forward flow oflanguage in the form of interjections, repairs or revisions of words and phrases. At elevatedrates, mazes may interrupt the communication process. A common practice in classroomsettings is to provide support for DLLs through small group activities such …

Building A Pipeline Of Bilingual Slps To Serve Dual Language Learners: An Inclusive Model Of Interprofessional Education, Sonja Pruitt-Lord, Alicia Escobedo, Jennica Paz, Carol Robinson-Zañartu

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Speech-language pathology graduate programs do not reflect equity across racial and ethnic groups. Training programs must adopt an anti-racist stance and intentionally and strategically plan for equity and inclusion of students and professionals who are Black, Indigenous and Persons of Color (BIPOC). Retention of minoritized students must be supported by inclusion efforts. The authors review systems of support essential to the recruitment and retention of BIPOC students in graduate programs. Through funding support from a grant, the authors developed a model of training bilingual SLP students to work with dual language learners through an inclusive model of interprofessional education. Finally, …

Bimodal And Bilingual: Language Characteristics Of Asl And English Users, Caitlin Bumpass

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bimodal bilingualism is the use of both an oral and a sign language, which in the United States often includes the ability to perceive and produce both American Sign Language (ASL) and spoken English (Emmory, Borinstein, Thompson, & Gollan, 2008). The primary focus of this research is to examine the operational definition of bilingualism, specifically when English and ASL are the two languages used, within the scholarly journals in the related field of deaf education. There is an abundant amount of research regarding language of children and adults who are deaf or hard of hearing (d/hh); however, it is unclear …

Phonological Variation Among Young Spanish-English Dual Language Learners On An English Sentence Repetition Task, Sarah Kate Coleman

Senior Theses

Purpose - There is a need for research informing best practices for assessing the language abilities of bilingual children, as well as research regarding typical phonological development of bilingual children. The purpose of the present paper is to contribute broadly to informing bilingual phonological assessment practice by examining phonological variation in Spanish-English speaking children’s English sentence repetition responses and the relation between these phonological variations and performance on the English sentence repetition task.

Method - 20 Spanish-English speaking kindergarteners completed the English sentence repetition task of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA; Peña et al., 2014). The phonological variations present in …

Serving Culturally And Linguistic Students Identified With A Communication Disability In The K-12 Educational Environments, Lashell Dauterman

Theses and Dissertations

As more and more students enter public schools with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds that require services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, facilitators must be more sensitive to the needs, especially in the area of communication. Augmentative and alternative communication devices and other assistive technology are required by law to be utilized with individuals identified as disabled. However, due to the challenges that exist in properly identifying and implementing intervention plans for children who require services as English language learners and special education, communication needs are often misidentified or not provided. Another issue that exists is the lack …

Aphasia In Multilingual Patients, Mira Goral, Zahra Hejazi

Publications and Research

Purpose of Review

We summarize recent published work concerning assessment and treatment of aphasia in bilingual and multilingual people and review current related models of treatment outcomes. As well, we discuss studies that address the recently debated topic of cognitive processes in bilingual individuals with aphasia, with a focus on the effects of bilingualism on aphasia recovery and its potential protective effects.

Recent Findings

Providing assessment and treatment tools that best serve multilingual individuals with aphasia and unpacking the variables and mechanisms that underlie response to treatment have emerged as goals of several recent studies. Additionally, while findings are still …

The Examination Of Morpho-Syntactic Production In Bahamian Children Exposed To Bahamian Creole English And English, Danielle Moss

Dissertations, 2020-current

Purpose. Information on the morpho-syntax development of children who speak varieties of Bahamian English, such as Bahamian Creole English (BCE), remains understudied. Therefore, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) assessing the expressive language of children who speak BCE encounter challenges in making clinical judgments of language difference, developmental errors, and language disorder because they are unable to judge the morpho-syntactic features of this creole to the rules of another variety of Bahamian English, standard English (SE¹), as both varieties, BCE and SE, are independently rule-governed. This dissertation study investigated the morpho-syntax of typically developing four and six-year-old Bahamian children who speak …

A Literature Review Examining The Effects Of Bilingualism In Individuals Who Stutter, Cheyenne Hofmann

Honors College Theses

This thesis will analyze the current research involving the impact of bilingualism in individuals who stutter through a literature review. There is currently no known etiology of stuttering, however, there are multiple theories regarding the onset of stutter. This thesis will explore the Cerebral Dominance theory of stuttering and its applicability to neuroimaging and bilingualism. Furthermore, this thesis will determine the presence and extent of the impact of bilingualism on people who stutter. The cultural, gender, language and neurological influences on stuttering for those who are bilingual will also be examined. Through this analysis, the positive and negative impact of …

English Morpheme Accuracy, Diversity, And Productivity Measures In School-Aged Bilingual Children, Gabrielle Raab

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The identification of meaningful language measures for bilingual children has important clinical implications in the diagnosis of impairment. Given the shortage of bilingual speech-language pathologists, informative English measures are invaluable. This study extends current research to examine the utility of widely accepted English grammatical measures in bilingual school-aged children with differing levels of English exposure. The language sample analyses implemented have shown repeatedly to discriminate between typical and language impaired monolinguals, and more recently were considered in the assessment of developing bilinguals. Measures were taken from the language samples of thirteen school-aged bilingual Spanish-English speaking children who told a story …

Morphological Production Accuracy Patterns In Younger And Older Spanish-English Bilingual Children, Isabel Angelica Cano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Clinicians require a model of typical bilingual language development. Morphological production accuracy patterns vary in Spanish-English (S-E) bilingual children considering differences in the exposure and use of their two languages compared to their monolingual peers. The purpose of the current study was to examine morphological production accuracy patterns in thirty younger (3- to 4-years old) and older (5- to 6-years old) S-E bilingual children utilizing English and Spanish Morphosyntax subtests from a bilingual language screener. Across development, older bilingual children were more accurate on all forms in both English and Spanish than younger bilingual children. Across languages, all S-E bilingual …

Assessing Bilingual Children With A Language Disorder, Ana Franco, Tricia Larkin, Ann Beck

Graduate Independent Studies - Communication Sciences and Disorders

The population in the United States is rapidly diversifying, and it is estimated that 4.9 million English-Language Learning (ELL) students are currently in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). ELL students come from diverse linguistic backgrounds and have varying proficiencies in English and their native language. The linguistic and cultural differences bilingual ELL students present when they attend public schools have created challenges for the current assessment and treatment services available for those bilingual children with communication disorders. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are required to assess bilingual children suspected of having a language disorder, one of the most …

Psychometric Evaluation Of The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment Sentence Repetition Task For Clinical Decision-Making, Lisa A. Fitton Ph.D., Rachel Hoge, Yaacov Petscher, Carla Wood

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was a) to examine the underlying components or factor structure of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (Peña et al., 2014) sentence repetition task and b) to examine the relationship between Spanish-English speaking children's sentence repetition and vocabulary performance. Method: Participants were 291 Spanish-English speaking children in kindergarten and first grade. Item analyses were used to evaluate the underlying factor structure for each language version of the sentence repetition tasks of the BESA. The tasks were then examined in relation to a measure of English receptive vocabulary. Results: Bifactor models, which include a single underlying …

Neural Indices Of Vowel Discrimination In Monolingual And Bilingual Infants And Children, Yan H. Yu, Carol Tessel, Henry Han, Luca Campanelli, Nancy Vidal, Jennifer Gerometta, Karen Garrido-Nag, Hia Datta, Valerie L. Shafer

Publications and Research

Objectives: To examine maturation of neural discriminative responses to an English vowel contrast from infancy to 4 years of age and to determine how biological factors (age and sex) and an experiential factor (amount of Spanish versus English input) modulate neural discrimination of speech.

Design: Event-related potential (ERP) mismatch responses (MMRs) were used as indices of discrimination of the American English vowels [ε] versus [I] in infants and children between 3 months and 47 months of age. A total of 168 longitudinal and cross-sectional data sets were collected from 98 children (Bilingual Spanish–English: 47 male and 31 female …

Implications Of Dual Language Scoring Of The Preschool Language Scale-Fifth Edition Spanish For Bilingual Preschool-Aged Children, Callie Mae Mathis

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: Spanish versions of standardized tests used in language evaluations are not well studied. The purpose of this study is to further examine the appropriateness of the Preschool Language Scale, Fifth Edition Spanish (PLS-5S) in a U.S./Mexico border community by comparing the Dual language scores versus the Spanish only scores and comparing the normative sample of the PLS-5S to the population of El Paso, TX.

Method: Twenty-three bilingual preschool aged children in the El Paso area completed the Spanish Edition of the PLS-5S. The parents and teachers of the participants completed two language proficiency questionnaires (Bilingual Input Output Survey; BIOS …

Grammatical Error Types Using A Picture Description Task In English And Spanish With Young Children, Lisa Valles

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: The current study was part of a larger project examining diagnostic accuracy of various assessment tools for bilingual children living in a border community. The purpose of this project was to examine language sample measures in young children using a picture description task (Eisenberg & Guo, 2013) by answering the following questions:

1. What were the frequent types of errors exhibited by young children in English and Spanish?

2. Were there distinct types of grammatical errors across languages in bilingual children?

Methods: Participants were recruited from a large city on the US/Mexico border. There were 47 participants in the …