Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Static And Dynamic Spectral Acuity In Cochlear Implant Listeners For Simple And Speech-Like Stimuli, Benjamin Anderson Russell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For cochlear implant (CI) listeners, poorer than normal speech recognition abilities are typically attributed to degraded spectral acuity. However, estimates of spectral acuity have most often been obtained using simple (tonal) stimuli, presented directly to the implanted electrodes, rather than through the speech processor as occurs in everyday listening. Further, little is known about spectral acuity for dynamic stimuli, as compared to static stimuli, even though the perception of dynamic spectral cues is important for speech perception.

The primary goal of the current study was to examine spectral acuity in CI listeners, and a comparison group of normal hearing (NH) …

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 …

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 …

Build-Up Effect Of Auditory Stream Segregation Using Amplitude-Modulated Narrowband Noise, Harley J. Wheeler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Recent psychoacoustic experiments (Böckmann-Barthel et al., 2014; Deike et al., 2012) have re-examined research regarding stream segregation and the build-up effect. Stream segregation is the ability to discern auditory objects within a stream of information, such as distinguishing one voice amongst background noise or an instrument within an orchestra. Initial works examining this topic proposed that auditory information is not immediately distinguished as various streams, but rather that differences accumulate over time, allowing listeners to segregate information following a period of build-up (i.e., the build-up effect); whereas more current findings indicate a build-up period is unnecessary for segregation. This experiment’s …

Inter-Professional Collaboration: The Impact Of Serial Versus Merged Treatment On The Behavior Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Robyn Starry

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Interdisciplinary collaboration is an innovative, resourceful approach to healthcare intended to positively affect patient outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to determine the efficacy of the serial exposure to three treatments, Applied Behavior Analysis, Speech Language Pathology, and Occupational Therapy, in comparison with an exposure to a merge of these treatments on child outcomes. During the serial treatment phases of intervention, three licensed professionals implemented core techniques from their respective disciplines. During merged treatment phases, a graduate clinician combined and implemented techniques from all three fields: differential attention, request sequences, sensory exposure, verbal/tactile cueing for postural alignment/control and …

Effects Of Talker Variability On Spectral Contrast Effects., Asim Mohiuddin

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Honors Theses

Spectral contrast effects are context-dependent effects that influence the way we perceive certain sounds. Evidence of these effects can be seen in experiments where a precursor sound (e.g. a sentence) is followed by a target vowel sound (like /ɪ/ as in "bit" or /ɛ/ as in "bet"). If the precursor's frequency was emphasized in areas more consistent with the frequency of /ɛ/, listeners tend to perceive the target sound to be the opposite i.e. /ɪ/. A recent study shows using sentence precursors from 200 different talkers diminishes these effects questioning previous claims that talker variability has no influence on spectral …

Toddlers And Technology: An Examination Of How The Digital Surround May Be Related To Prototypic Vocabulary Development And Social Interactions During Play, Hannah Biarnesen Hutcheson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to examine how the digital technology that surrounds young children may be related to prototypic vocabulary development and Social interactions during play. Twenty-six families in the Northwest Arkansas region with children between 15-36 months of age participated in the study. Thirteen children attended a campus preschool, six children attended a grant-funded local preschool, and seven children, all from the Northwest Arkansas area, were part of an earlier home-based study. The materials for the study included a developmental-technology use questionnaire and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Archival videotaped play sessions with the seven home-based children utilized a “Little …

Talking About Aphasia: The Two Voices Of Insight, Elizabeth O'Brien

College Honors Program

This thesis aims to understand the lived experience of communication disorders (CDs), including the challenges, stigmas, and misconceptions related to CDs. It draws upon in-depth interviews with speech-language pathologists (SLPs), participant observations of people with aphasia, and observations of aphasia forum websites. During the data collection process, people talked about the stigmas and hardships of CDs and the subjective experience of having trouble communicating with others. This thesis will use their words and ideas to highlight the important aspects of coping with and treating CDs. It discusses how people with aphasia think about space, their body, and time, and considers …

Neural Activity Reveals Effects Of Aging On Inhibitory Processes During Word Retrieval, Ranjini Mohan

Open Access Dissertations

Word retrieval difficulties are one of the most frustrating problems in older adults. Poorer access to phonological (speech sound) representation of the target word has been postulated as the underlying deficit, supported by findings of improvement in word retrieval after phonological priming. But the great variability in naming performance among older adults may reflect cognitive scaffolding or compensatory neurophysiological processes related to maintenance or decline of naming abilities. In order better understand aging effects in the underlying neurophysiological changes associated with phonological retrieval, the present study examined electrophysiological correlates of phonological priming and word retrieval in adults across the lifespan. …

Modeling Children's Organization Of Utterances Using Statistical Information From Adult Language Input, Katie Lynn Walker

Theses and Dissertations

Previous computerized models of child language acquisition have sought to determine how children acquire grammatical word categories (GWCs). The current study seeks to determine if statistical structure can be corroborated as a factor in GWC acquisition. Previous studies examining statistical structure have dealt with word order rather than GWC order and only examined an overall success rate. The present study examines how well a computer model of child acquisition of GWCs was able to reorganize scrambled sentences back into the correct GWC order using transitional probabilities extracted from adult language input. Overall, a 50% success rate was obtained, but when …

The Effect Of A Fluent Signing Narrator On Quality Of Maternal Behavior During E-Book Shared Reading Interactions With Their Children With Hearing Loss, Mar Alejandra Bonilla Yáñez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Purpose: The average high school student with hearing loss graduates reading at a 4th grade level. A factor that may contribute to the literacy development in children with typical hearing is language modeling and support surrounding shared book reading. The shared book reading experiences of children with hearing loss (CHL) and their parents may be different in quantity and quality from their peers with typical hearing. There is evidence reporting parental frustration and feeling of incompetence when reading to their CHL due to a sensory mismatch between the childâ??s and the parentâ??s mode of communication and skills. This study investigated …

The Effect Of A Fluent Signing Narrator On Children's Behavior During Technology-Enhanced Shared Reading With Children With Hearing Loss And Their Parents, Gabriela Itzel Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Shared reading plays an essential role in the language and literacy development of children who are at risk of future problems in those areas. Children with hearing loss (CHL) are a group who usually experience limited and poor quality activities that foster literacy development such as shared reading (SR). Researchers examining high quality interactions have rated child behaviors, primarily attention and initiation, during shared reading and play based activities finding positive correlations between these behaviors and the overall development in typically developing children as well as in children with other impairments such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Down syndrome (Kim …

The Use Of Gesture In Self-Initiated Self-Repair Sequences By Persons With Non-Fluent Aphasia, Eleanor M. Feltner

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

This study examines the relationship between types of gestures and instances of self-initiated self-repair (SISR) used by persons with non-fluent aphasia (NFA), which is a type of aphasia characterized by stilted speech or signing (Papathanasiou et al., 2013), in interactions with clinicians. Conversation repairs in this study are assessed using the framework of Conversation Analysis (CA), which is an approach for describing, analyzing, and understanding social interaction (Sidnell, 2010). Previous linguistic studies have demonstrated a distinct preference for the use of gesture during a repair by persons with aphasia (Goodwin, 1995; Klippi, 2015; Wilkinson, 2013). This study draws more conclusive …

Communication: How Do Females With Rett Syndrome Perform This Activity And What Factors Influence Performance?, Anna Urbanowicz

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Background Rett syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder primarily caused by mutations in the X-linked methyl-Cp2G-binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene. The disorder affects approximately 1 in 9000 females and is usually associated with language, physical and intellectual impairments, each of which contributes to difficulties with communication. In Rett syndrome, eye gaze is considered a common form of communication and conventional methods, such as talking and gestures, less common. Females appear to use these forms of communication to serve a number of functions including choice making, requesting, social convention, bringing attention to themselves, and to reject, comment and answer. However, the literature …

The Effect Of Aphasia On Quality Of Life, Coping Style, And Resilience, Nelson J. Hernandez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Approximately one million people in the United States suffer from aphasia. There are multiple types of aphasia, however they are usually placed into two categories: non-fluent or fluent. The psychosocial factors that are impacted due to the type of aphasia has not been systematically investigated. The purpose of this study is to examine how non-fluent and fluent Individuals With Aphasia (IWA) compare or contrast across three psychosocial factors, Quality of Life (QoL), coping style, and resilience. The World Health Quality of Life- BREF (WHOQOL-BREF), Assimilative-Accommodative Coping Scale (AACS), and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale-10 item version (CD-RISC-10), were administered once to …