Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Recursive Functional Learning In Nonfluent Aphasia, Gerald C. Imaezue

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

People with nonfluent aphasia (PWNA) require feedback from an external agent as well self-feedback to facilitate performance of language production tasks. The extent to which PWNA can use self-feedback alone to improve their task performance is unknown. In addition, it is argued that self-feedback may reinforce or minimize performance errors over time. To test whether either is the case, we introduce an original learning mechanism, recursive functional learning, which uses self-feedback loops to optimize recursively multiple subsystems (cognitive and linguistic subsystems) that PWNA engage during task performance. We used this mechanism to underpin a novel automated procedure we developed, recursive …

Analysis Of Electrophysiological Markers And Correlated Components Of Neural Responses To Discourse Coherence, Kurt M. Masiello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Constructing meaning from spoken language is invaluable for learning, social interaction, and communication. In clinical populations with developmental disorders of speech comprehension, the severity of disruption can persist and vary from limiting occupational opportunities to lower performance outcomes. Previous research has reported an event-related potential (ERP) neural positivity over right hemisphere lateral anterior sites in response to semantic and discourse processing. Although useful as a marker for clinical populations of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental language disorder (DLD), little is understood about the dynamics and neural sources of this biological marker. In addition to traditional methods of ERP analysis, …

A Survey Study Of Speech-Language Therapists’ Experiences With Teletherapy At The Onset Of The Covid-19 Crisis, Jason A. Rosas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study aimed to understand how delivering pediatric treatment services via ‘teletherapy’ affected speech-language therapists (SLTs) during the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis in 2020. SLTs reported on their experiences with the change from in-person to remote service delivery via two national surveys distributed at the start of the pandemic between April 2020 and July 2020. To explain SLTs’ survey responses, this dissertation introduced the Professional Adaptation Model (PA Model). The PA Model facilitated evaluation of the SLTs’ professional environment and the psychological constructs of their professional identity believed to influence the transition to speech-language teletherapy. Specifically, …

Cross-Linguistic Morphosyntactic Influence In Bilingual Speakers Of Jamaican Creole And Jamaican English, Taryn R. Malcolm

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bilingualism in Jamaica is of considerable consequence, as most individuals are early bilinguals, speaking both a variety of Jamaican Creole (JC) from birth and having standardized English (sE) as the language of instruction in education. Immigrants from Jamaica to the United States are an ideal population to examine how cross-linguistic influence (CLI) impacts morphosyntax as JC and sE differ in morphosyntactic constructions, including verb tense- marking, subject-verb agreement, and copula use. While much of the work in the field of CLI has examined spoken language pairs with varying degrees of similarity (or difference) between the languages, examining CLI in a …

Development Of An Aba Tool Kit For Audiologists To Increase Hearing Aid Wear Time In Individuals With Autism, Lindsay Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

When working with individuals with the dual-diagnosis of hearing loss and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), audiologists are often faced with unique challenges and must adapt their approach in order to more effectively address the needs of these individuals. Currently, there is only a small body of research focused on the special considerations required for appropriately fitting and utilizing amplification for children with the dual-diagnosis of hearing loss and ASD. Subsequently, recommendations and strategies for clinicians to implement when faced with these common challenges, specifically of hearing aid compliance and appropriate hearing aid wear time, are lacking. It is important to …

Cognitive And Neurobiological Degeneration Of The Mental Lexicon In Primary Progressive Aphasia, Jet M. J. Vonk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ease with which we use the thousands of words in our vocabulary stands in stark contrast to our difficulty establishing how they are organized in our mind and brain. The breakdown of language due to cortical atrophy in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) creates conditions to study this organization at a cognitive and neurobiological level in that the three variants of this disease, namely non-fluent, logopenic, and semantic PPA, each bear their own signature of language-specific decline and cortical atrophy. As the impaired regions in each variant are linked to different lexical and semantic attributes of words, lexical decision performance …

Development Of A Patient-Centered Health Literacy Toolkit For Audiology And Hearing Loss (The 'Hh Lit Kit'), Jennifer L. Gilligan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Patient-Centered Health Literacy Toolkit for Audiology & Hearing Loss (‘HH Lit Kit’) represents four years of inquiry into health literacy and Patient-Centered Care (PCC) in audiology. While awareness of health literacy continues to gain momentum in medicine and public health, there is a paucity of information on PCC and health literacy in audiology.

Low health literacy is linked to poorer health and poorer quality of life. Patients with hearing loss are at high risk for low health literacy. This presents a major concern because hearing loss affects the way information is processed, retained, and applied. Gaps have been identified …

Language-Mixing In Discourse In Bilingual Individuals With Non-Fluent Aphasia, Avanthi Paplikar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Language-mixing (LM) as defined by Chengappa (2009, p. 417) is an “intra-sentential phenomenon referred to as the mixing of various linguistic units (morphemes, words, modifiers, phrases, etc.), primarily from two participating grammatical systems”. LM is influenced by grammatical, environmental, and social constraints (e.g., Milroy & Wei, 1995; Bhat & Chengappa, 2005). Researchers have suggested that LM in patients with aphasia is a communicative strategy used to achieve successful exchanges between speakers; the effectiveness of this mixing, however, had yet to be demonstrated quantitatively.

In the current study we investigated whether LM is present in bilingual speakers with aphasia, and if …

When Less Can Be More: Dual Task Effects In Stuttering And Fluent Adults, Naomi Nechama Eichorn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The present study tested the counterintuitive hypothesis that engaging cognitive resources in a secondary task while speaking could benefit aspects of speech production. Effects of dual task conditions on speech fluency, rate, and error patterns were examined in stuttering and fluent speakers based on specific predictions derived from three related theoretical frameworks. Twenty fluent adults and 19 adults with confirmed diagnoses of stuttering participated in the study. All participants completed two baseline tasks: (1) a continuous speaking task in which spontaneous speech was produced in response to given prompts; and (2) a working memory (WM) task involving manipulations of WM …

Neurophysiological Bases Of Frequency Discrimination In Children With Auditory Processing Disorder Or Specific Language Impairment, Christine Rota-Donahue

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to determine if 10-12 year old children with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) or Specific Language Impairment (SLI) could discriminate three different frequency changes behaviorally and electrophysiologically. Behavioral frequency discrimination and event-related potentials were examined using a 1000Hz pure tone base frequency. Typically developing children and children with APD or SLI differed in in their detection of frequency changes: behavioral results were below chance level and the MMN amplitude was smaller in the impaired population. Slight differences between children with APD and children with SLI were also found that might shed light on the controversy …