Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Where Do We Go From Here? The Need For Genetic Referrals In Patients Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing: Findings From A Regional Survey, Tyson S. Barrett, Amanda Wylie, Beth Vogel, Kunal Sanghavi, Melissa Raspa, Kathryn P. Aveni, Kathryn Tullis, Michele Caggana, Karl R. White, Joann Bodurtha

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess primary health care providers’ knowledge and use of genetic services for children whose hearing screening indicates they may be deaf/hard of hearing (D/HH) and identify areas in which health care providers can be supported to increase family education and referral of families for genetic consultation.

Methodology: A survey was developed on current practices, knowledge, and perceived beliefs regarding genetic education and referrals for deafness. The surveys were distributed to pediatricians, family medicine physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants in DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA, VA, and WV.

Results: Among 266 …

Identification Of Oral Clefts As A Risk Factor For Hearing Loss During Newborn Hearing Screening, Patricia L. Purcell, Kathleen Cy Sie, Todd C. Edwards, Debra Lochner Doyle, Karin Neidt

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Objective: This study assessed whether children with oral clefts are appropriately classified as at-risk for hearing loss at the time of newborn hearing screening and describes their screening and diagnostic results.

Design: Birth certificates were used to identify children with cleft lip and palate or isolated cleft palate born in Washington State from 2008–2013. These were cross-referenced with the state’s Early Hearing Detection, Diagnosis and Intervention (EHDDI) database. Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine associations.

Results: Birth records identified 235 children with cleft lip and palate and 116 with isolated cleft palate. Six children were listed as having both …

Pediatric Hearing Device Management: Professional Practices For Monitoring Aided Audibility, Karen F. Munoz, Lauri Nelson, Kacy Herald

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Objective: The purpose of this study was to explore professional practices for monitoring aided audibility for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH).

Design: A cross-sectional survey design was used to identify providers’ self-reported practice patterns for monitoring aided audibility for children who use hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bone-conduction hearing aids. Three surveys were used.

Study Sample: Practicing audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and deaf educators providing services to children birth to six years of age who use hearing technology were recruited to participate. A total of 184 surveys were included in the analysis (96 hearing aid; 47 cochlear …

The Effect Of The Slope Of The Psychometric Function On The Measurement Of Speech Recognition Threshold Using A Male Talker, Nujod Ali Bakhsh

Theses and Dissertations

Speech audiometry is the aspect of audiology that provides critical information on how individuals hear one of the most important sounds of daily life: speech. The speech recognition threshold (SRT) is a measure of speech audiometry that is widely used to provide information on an individual's capacity to hear speech. Over time, researchers and clinicians have worked to improve the SRT by developing and modifying a variety of word lists to be used during testing. Eventually, spondaic words were selected as the best stimuli for the SRT. The spondaic words had to meet four criteria: familiarity, phonetic dissimilarity, normal sampling …

The Effect Of A Social Communication Intervention On The Correct Production Of Emotion Words In Children With Language Impairment, Annelise Luddington

Theses and Dissertations

Children diagnosed with Language Impairment (LI) often have difficulty with aspects of social communication. This thesis evaluates the effects of a social communication intervention focused on facilitating the correct production of emotion words in four elementary school-aged children with LI. Researchers monitored changes from pretreatment baseline data, through the intervention, and ended with posttreatment follow-up data for the emotions happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust. Based on baseline measures, emotion categories in which the child showed limited proficiency were targeted for the 20 intervention sessions. The emotions targeted were different for each child. Each intervention session contained a combination …

The Effects Of Social Communication Intervention On Emotion Inferencing In Children With Developmental Language Disorder, Capri Annissa Seaberg

Theses and Dissertations

Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) often face problems in areas of social communication including negotiating with peers, entering ongoing interactions, and engaging in conflict resolution. A potential cause of these social communication difficulties is the decreased ability to make emotional inferences. This thesis investigates the effects of a social communication intervention on the ability of school-aged children with DLD to make inferences about emotions. Five children with DLD between the ages of 6;10 and 12;4 participated in a social communication intervention that highlighted principles of emotion understanding (recognizing emotions in facial expressions, inferring emotions with contextual information, and discussing …

Articulatory Kinematic Differences During Adaptation To A Bite Block, Madison Ann Mchaley

Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the effects of bite blocks on articulatory kinematics when producing /r/ within a phrase. Participants consisted of 20 young adults (10 males, 10 females) with no speech, language or hearing disorders. Participants produced the carrier phrase, I say __ with the nonsense words /əri/ (high front vowel), /əræ/ (low front vowel), /əru/ (high back vowel), /ərɑ/ (low back vowel). A Northern Digital Instruments Wave electromagnetic articulograph measured the articulatory movements while the speaker produced the stimuli in two conditions (Pre bite block and post bite block). Bilateral bite blocks were made using Express dental putty, which …

The Effect Of The Slope Of The Psychometric Function On The Measurement Of Speech Recognition Threshold Using A Female Talker, Jessica Lee Reese

Theses and Dissertations

Speech audiometry has long been a component of a thorough audiological examination. The speech recognition threshold (SRT) measurement is perhaps the most widely used measurement in speech audiometry. For decades, researchers and clinicians have worked to create and fine-tune word lists that for use in SRT testing; their aim being to improve the accuracy for classifying a client's ability to hear and comprehend speech. Experts in the field have agreed to follow four tenets of speech audiometry when selecting word sets. This study examined whether improvement to stimulus lists for SRT measurement could be made in regards to the tenet …

Understanding Dysrhythmic Speech: When Rhythm Does Not Matter And Learning Does Not Happen, Stephanie A. Borrie, Kaitlin L. Lansford, Tyson S. Barrett

Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education Faculty Publications

A positive relationship between rhythm perception and improved understanding of a naturally dysrhythmic speech signal, ataxic dysarthria, has been previously reported [Borrie, Lansford, and Barrett. (2017). J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 60, 3110–3117]. The current follow-on investigation suggests that this relationship depends on the nature of the dysrhythmia. When the corrupted rhythm cues are relatively predictable, affording some learnable acoustic regularity, the relationship is replicated. However, this relationship is nonexistent, along with any intelligibility improvements, when the corrupted rhythm cues are unpredictable. Findings highlight a key role for rhythm perception and distributional regularities in adaptation to dysrhythmic speech.

Individualizing Care For Pediatric Patients With Autism Spectrum Disorder In Perioperative Services, Erin Scheller

Master's Theses

This research explores solutions for individualizing and improving care for pediatric patients with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the Perioperative Setting of an Outpatient Surgery Center. Specifically, it seeks to determine if providing parent and staff resources on Autism Spectrum Disorder is significantly helpful in increasing confidence in the staff by the parents and the staff themselves. Participants included thirty-five surveyed families who had pediatric patients visiting perioperative services and staff who work on the unit. Methods used include information dissemination with the use of printable and online evidence-based resources, an in-person education event for staff, and a pilot study of …

Mismatch Negativity Event-Related Potential Elicited By Speech Stimuli In Geriatric Patients, Dana Pierce, David Mcpherson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Much of the research done in the field of speech perception has focused on the behavioral aspect of language and not on the functionality of the brain itself. For our research, we focused on the neurological processes of speech perception through Quantitative Electroencephalogram (QEEG) ¹ and brain mapping. This allowed us to visualize the processes that the brain must go through for successful speech perception. Specifically, we were interested as to how the brain may differ in its processing of speech information in young (18 to 27 years of age) and senior (65 to 80 years of age) individuals. For …

Factors Related To Successful Implementation Of An Aac Device For An Individual With Autism, Michaela Worms

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Communication impairment is a defining characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (American Psychiatric Association, 2013); therefore, the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has become an essential part of language intervention for children with autism that experience significant difficulties with communication (Flores et al., 2012). Assessing children’s preferences for AAC options may be important with respect to AAC abandonment, which is a problem in the AAC field (Johnson, Inglebret, Jones, & Ray, 2006). This single-subject study identified factors related to successful implementation, acquisition, and usage of an AAC system. The clinician collected baseline data on the client’s spontaneous production …

A Step Towards Differentiating Language Difference From Disorder, Sarah Scribano

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

English learners (ELs) composed 10% of the American school-age population in the 2014 – 2015 school year. However, only a small percentage of speech language pathologists (SLPs) report feeling well qualified to address the cultural and linguistic needs of ELs. This can be attributed to a number of factors, including inadequate clinical markers, a shortage of developmental data for ELs, and a lack of cultural consideration in standardized assessments. Due to these barriers, SLPs struggle to differentiate between language differences and language disorders and are at risk for over-identifying or under-identifying language impairment (LI) in ELs. Research suggests that a …

Behavioral Audiometry Testing In Drosophila Melanogaster, Amanda Cascio

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The genetic make up of Drosophila melanogaster aligns closely enough to humans for them to function as models for the study of hearing loss and disorders (Albert & Göpfert, 2015; Duyk et al., 1997). The purpose of this project was to design a computer automated program capable of quickly assessing the hearing of flies based on their suppression of courtship behaviors in the presence of an audible stimulus. We were unable to document the male courtship song due to low frequency noise present in our sound attenuating booth. We continued the experiment using a spectrum of fly noise unassociated with …

Augmented Reality For At-Home Speech Intervention, Emily Vayo

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that allows users to view graphics, videos, or other applications in their environment in real time using mobile devices, such as a smartphone or tablet. It provides an interactive way to combine technology and learning. Although AR has potential applications in the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders, few studies have investigated its reliability in speech intervention. This project explores whether parents are receptive to implementing AR technology into speech intervention and addresses one way to make intervention more engaging. The project looked at parental attitudes toward AR in integrating speech intervention goals at …

Use Of Behavior Strategies In Speech-Language Therapy: A Survey Of Virginia School Based Speech-Language Pathologists, Gillian Withers

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

In the public schools, Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) serve as clinicians to children with various language, articulation, and communication disorders. Often times, these conditions are present in children who also have disruptive or inattentive behaviors. SLPs in the school system are required to provide effective treatment to each child; however, too often the effectiveness of treatment is hindered by behavior outbursts from the children. Although there are empirically supported plans and strategies for behavior management in general elementary school classrooms, little is known about the knowledge and implementation practices of SLPs who serve school-age children. The purpose of this honors thesis …

Establishing Effective Amplitude Criterion For Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, Lindsey Michele Schwenger

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

My honors project will document and reflect on my experiences as a member of a research team that is studying transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) as a treatment for dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, which affects a vast, diverse group of individuals. There is substantial need for more efficient and effective rehabilitation strategies used to restore abilities and reduce the risks associated with dysphagia. Recent studies have addressed these risks by exploring tDCS as a treatment for central nervous system damage caused by stroke, traumatic brain injury, and Parkinson's disease. Research has recently been conducted to test its effectiveness, but has …

Pupillometry As A Test Of Infant Word Recognition, Kierra Lynch

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

By 11 months of age, infants recognize commonly occurring word forms in their environment. The Head Turn Preference Paradigm (HTPP) is the one method of measuring infant word form recognition. The HTPP uses looking times as judged by a head turn of the infant towards or away from a speaker. This method is thus subject to infant attention, which can make it difficult to get accurate results when infants are not paying attention due to external factors (for example, teething). Pupillometry is a non-invasive, physiological measurement that uses pupil dilation to assess cognitive processes. Pupil dilations have been found to …

Does Emg Monitoring In A Cvemp Matter?, Kimberly Fleck

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

To determine if EMG monitoring or the use of amplitude normalization would significantly reduce the amplitude variability and amplitude asymmetry of the cVEMP in children ages 3 and under, we first needed to create a control group with young, healthy adults to compare the pediatric group to. We also wanted to replicate earlier studies that showed EMG monitoring and amplitude normalization does not have an impact on the VEMP in young, healthy adults. We tested two different positions, sitting and supine. Supine is the optimal position to generate EMG, but we wanted to have control data in case the pediatric …

Conversational Speech Characteristics During Entrainment, Pamela Molnar

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This study examined the acoustic characteristics of conversational speech associated with entrainment, which is the tendency for communicative behaviors of individuals engaged in a given communication context to become alike (Borrie & Liss, 2014). The study adopted a within-speaker approach to evaluate changes in speech production characteristics relative to the given individual, defined as the repeated speaker. Across experiment sessions, the repeated speaker interacted with different communication partners, who were defined as the non-repeated speakers. In each session, the repeated speaker and one non-repeated speaker engaged in a series of tasks in the following order: conversation, interactive picture description task, …

Comparing Two Naturalistic Pragmatic Assessments: The Celf-5 Pragmatic Activities And The Yale In Vivo Pragmatic Protocol (Yipp), Rebecca Reid

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Pragmatics, or the social use of language, is a dimension of communication skills that is very difficult to assess due to its dependence on cultural norms, situational context, and speaker differences. Of the current methods for evaluating pragmatic language skills in children, the literature most frequently recommends naturalistic assessment because it allows the clinician to most closely simulate a real-life interaction. Despite these recommendations, limited information exists to guide clinicians in making decisions about which activities yield the most representative pragmatic language sample. This preliminary study compared two naturalistic pragmatic assessments, the Pragmatic Activities from the Clinical Evaluation of Language …

A New Perspective On The Outcomes Of Children With Cleft Lip And Palate: Application Of The Icf-Cy, Brenda Louw

ETSU Faculty Works

Learner Outcomes:

• Acknowledge the application value of the ICF to individuals with CLP.
• Integrate the ICF framework into the assessment of individuals with CLP.
• Formulate intervention goals that go beyond speech production skills to include functional communication outcomes in a variety of life situations.
• Include improvement and changes in communication participation in everyday functioning in assessment and progress reports.

Transition Of Care For The Young Adult With Cleft Palate: Stuck Between Goodbye To The Pediatric Team And Hello To Adult-Centered Care, Linda Vallino, Brenda Louw

ETSU Faculty Works

Participants will be able to:

• Describe the characteristics and needs of young adults with CLP.
• Discuss the model of transition of care for the young adult with CLP.
• Extrapolate strategies that teams could use to improve the care of young adults with CLP.

Distractions In Hearing: Measuring Impulsivity In Service Members With A Mtbi, Kathleen Margaret Chopra

Dissertations, 2014-2019

One of the cognitive symptoms associated with the diagnosis of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is the degradation of focus and attention. This pilot study was designed to quantify examples of such capabilities in Service Members diagnosed with mTBI and to compare their abilities to peers without an mTBI diagnosis. Specifically, we compared participant groups on their false alarm rates and thresholds for contralateral and informational masking tasks to document the participants’ ability to focus and detect an auditory stimulus in the presence of distracting maskers. In this study, comparing the overall performance of Service Members, with and without …

Development Of A Questionnaire To Assess Attitudes Toward Hearing Aids, Corinne O'Shaughnessy

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Many reasons have been postulated as to why persons with hearing loss are reluctant to engage in the hearing rehabilitation process. While not the only determinant, an individual's attitudes toward hearing loss and hearing aids have been shown to affect adoption of amplification adversely and eventual outcomes of hearing aid use. Several attempts have been made to develop test instruments for attitudes toward hearing loss, but nothing specific to attitudes toward hearing aids or hearing aid technology. The primary objective of this study was to develop a questionnaire to assess attitudes toward hearing aids using the ABC model of attitude …

Objective Differences Between Premium And Mid-Level Digital Hearing Aids, Chelsea C. Barry

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This ongoing study compared premium and mid-level hearing aids from major manufacturers on noise reduction and general electroacoustic characteristics. The findings of this study will contribute to the scarce independent literature evaluating currently available hearing aid technology. Measuring the overall gain reduction in response to a steady state noise can objectively test noise reduction. However, such a method does not specifically test a hearing aid’s ability to reduce speech in specific narrow frequency bands. Hanline & Rout (2008) developed a set of stimuli to evaluate multichannel noise reduction algorithms more precisely. We used these stimuli to test noise reduction abilities …

Melodic Contour Identification And Speech Recognition By School-Aged Children, Michael P. Morikawa

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Using the Sung Speech Corpus (SSC), which encompasses a single database that contains musical pitch, timbre variations and speech information in identification tasks, the current study aimed to explore the development of normal-hearing children’s ability to use the pitch and timbre cues. Thirteen normal hearing children were recruited for the study ages ranging from 7 to 16 years old. Participants were separated into two separate groups: Younger (7-9) and Older (10-16). Musical Experience was taken into account as well. The Angel Sound ™ program was utilized for testing which was adopted from previous studies, most recently Crew, Galvin, and Fu …

Variations In Breastfeeding Practices In The Nicu: A Mixed Methods Investigation, Elizabeth Emaleo Nottingham

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Abstract

Human milk is crucial for the healthy development of infants, particularly preterm infants. Practice patterns and resource allocations to support and promote optimal breastfeeding in this population of infants varies by facility. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore differences in practice patterns, describe nurses’ knowledge and perceptions about breastfeeding in the NICU, and identify factors contributing to the differences between hospitals.

Researchers used a sequential explanatory design to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. In the first quantitative phase, a Web-based questionnaire was developed and deployed via Qualtrics to all hospitals with a Neonatal-Perinatal Fellowship …

Envelope-Following Responses And The Effects Of Cochlear Delay, Nicole Jones

Dissertations, 2014-2019

There is great interest in developing clinical applications for phase-locked auditory potentials that are elicited by human speech. A common analysis of vowel-elicited responses is to analyze the envelope-following response (EFR) amplitude at the fundamental frequency (F0) of the eliciting vowel. For this study, we systematically examined the effect of modeled vowel formants on EFR amplitude. EFRs were elicited using a fundamental frequency of 103 Hz, representative of a male speaker’s fundamental frequency. Stimuli consisted of two simultaneously presented sinusoidally amplitude-modulated tones with the same F0. One carrier frequency was fixed at 353 Hz, representing a first formant frequency; the …

Factors Contributing To Preschoolers' Communicative Participation Outcomes: Findings From A Population-Based Longitudinal Cohort Study In Ontario, Canada, Barbara Jane Cunningham, Steven E. Hanna, Peter Rosenbaum, Nancy Thomas-Stonell, Bruce Oddson

PRECISe Preschool Speech and Language Publications

Purpose. To identify predictors of communicative participation outcomes for a large cohort of preschoolers with communication disorders.

Method. A secondary analysis of longitudinal program evaluation data from Ontario Canada’s Preschool Speech and Language Program (PSLP). Data available for 46,872 children 18-67 months of age (M = 41.76 mo, SD = 11.92, 68% male) were previously used to predict children’s communicative participation skill development in five levels of function. Demographic and intervention-based variables were added to the models to identify new predictors of growth.

Results. Three demographic and three intervention-based variables were statistically significant predictors of children’s communicative participation …