Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Caseload/Workload Study Of Speech Language Pathologists In Missouri Public Schools, Jinyu Du

Masters Theses

"A survey was distributed to speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in Missouri public schools to obtain statewide information regarding caseload number, workload related activities and SLPs' level job satisfaction on various aspects of their job. An online questionnaire was sent to school-based SLPs in Missouri to solicit factual information on average monthly caseload numbers, factors that impact caseload assignments and the percentage of time spent on various professional responsibilities and job satisfaction ratings. Results indicated that 24% of the respondents had caseloads that exceeded the maximum state regulated caseload number for SLPs. Respondents were also largely unaware of the maximum caseload regulation …

An Investigation Of Motor Speech And Motor Limb Movements Following A Sport-Related Concussion-An Extension Study, Linda Phan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Minimal research is available regarding the effects on motor speech and motor limb movements following a sport-related concussion (SRC). A sensitive measure is necessary to detect subtle deficits in motor speech, as it may provide diagnostic insight involving return-to- play decisions.

Purpose: This research aimed at replicating and extending a previous research study, Hewitt (2015), conducted at the University of Texas at El Paso. The Hewitt (2015) study examined motor speech tasks and motor limb tasks which included the following: oral diadochokinetics (DDK): sequential motion rate (SMR)(i.e. /puh-tuh-kuh/) and alternating motion rate (AMR) (i.e. /puhpuhpuh/, /tuhtuhtuh/, /kuhkuhkuh/); speech rate …

The Olfactory System In Schizophrenia: An Rsfmri Study Of The Piriform Cortex, Sara Kiparizoska

Honors Theses

This thesis is a study of rsfMRI imaging in order to examine coactivation patters of the piriform cortex between healthy subjects and people with schizophrenia. As part of the olfactory system, the piriform cortex is an integral part of the smell sensation. Our studies showed that coactivation among the piriform cortex and other sensory brain regions differ in people with schizophrenia compared to healthy subjects. People with schizophrenia exhibit patterns of less coactivation among their sensory brain regions compared to control subjects, specifically the intracalcarine cortex, the right planum temporale, and the left occipital lobe. The purpose of this study …

Newborn Diagnostics: Effects Of Hearing Screening Failures, Appointment Attendance And Distance On Age Of Hearing Loss Diagnosis, Stephanie Trippel

Honors Theses

This thesis investigates diagnostic outcomes of infants referred to the University of Mississippi Speech and Hearing Center between January 2010 and September 2014. Data were collected on the reason for referral, eventual diagnosis, appointment attendance, and distance traveled of the patients referred. A total of 177 patients were collected. It was determined that UMSHC reaches EDHI goals for most patients who receive a diagnosis. An overwhelming majority of patients referred were due to newborn hearing screening failure, and most patients received a diagnosis of within normal limits. Those patients who never received a diagnosis had poor attendance which seemed to …

Attitudes And Practices Among College Students Relative To Personal Listening Device Usage And Hearing Conservation, Molly Grace Williams

Honors Theses

As technology has advanced, the popularity of personal listening devices (PLD) has become widespread among the millennial generation. It is normal in today's culture to see members of the millennial generation using their PLDs in most any setting. Due to this growth in popularity and usage of PLDs, there is an increased and relatively undocumented opportunity for noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) among the people in the millennial generation. In order to research the effects of this shift in culture relative to PLD usage, college-aged members of the millennial generation were asked to participate in a study via word of …

Aphasia Rehabilitation Service Delivery In A Stroke Rehabilitation Unit In Australia: A Clinical Audit Of Speech Pathology Practices, Laleh Rej, Sebastian Doeltgen, Amy Rodriguez, Willem Van Steenbrugge

Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice

Purpose: To investigate service delivery of aphasia rehabilitation in a metropolitan rehabilitation hospital by speech pathologists and assess adherence to both the National Stroke Foundation (NSF) Clinical Guidelines and the Australasian Rehabilitation Outcomes Centre (AROC) database of benchmarks. Method: A retrospective audit of 34 discharged patients was conducted within a dedicated stroke rehabilitation unit from March 2012 to July 2013 in Australia. Discharge reports, Functional Independence Measure (FIM) scores and clinical time statistics derived from the organization’s electronic database were studied and compared with NSF’s Clinical Guidelines for best practice recommendations and AROC benchmarks. Results: Patients with aphasia were admitted …

Predicting Second Grade Listening Comprehension Using Prekindergarten Measures, Crystle N. Alonzo, Gloria Yeomans-Maldonado, Kimberly A. Murphy, Beau Bevens, Language And Reading Research Consortium (Larrc)

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine prekindergarten predictors of listening comprehension in second grade. Methods: Within a large, 5-year longitudinal study, children progressing from prekindergarten to second grade were administered a comprehensive set of prekindergarten measures of foundational language skills (vocabulary and grammar), higher-level language skills (inferencing, comprehension monitoring, and text structure knowledge), listening comprehension, working memory, and nonverbal processing, as well as second grade measures of listening comprehension. Results: A prekindergarten measure of listening comprehension-the Test of Narrative Language-and a prekindergarten measure of foundational language skills and working memory-the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4 Recalling …

Mand Training: An Examination Of Response-Class Structure In Three Children With Autism And Severe Language Delays, Erik Drasgow, Christian A. Martin, Laura C. Chezan, Katie Wolfe, James W. Halle

Communication Disorders & Special Education Faculty Publications

Our primary purpose in this study was to examine the structure of a response class when new members are acquired through mand training. To do this, we replaced existing mands (e.g., reaching) in three children with autism with two new functionally equivalent mands. Next, we examined their responding under immediate- and delayed-reinforcement conditions. Then, we assessed generalization to novel social partners. We employed a reversal design to examine the effectiveness of mand training and to assess responding under both immediate- and delayed-reinforcement conditions. Our results suggest that all children acquired the new mands and that two of the children emitted …

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 Effects Of Bilingualism On Auditory Selective Attention In Normal-Hearing Adults, Francisco Fernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Bilingual speakers have been shown to be more adept than monolingual speakers at actively blocking useless information in the visual modalities. This advantage should be observed in both the visual and the auditory modalities using tasks of inhibitory control. However, very little is known regarding how bilingualism influences inhibitory control in the perception of auditory information. By using an auditory test of inhibition, such as the utilization of a Dichotic Listening task, bilinguals are expected to display an increased measure of cognitive ability.

Does Knowledge Of Concussion Symptoms Influence An Athlete's Self-Report Of A History Of Concussion Across Gender And Age?, Kara Ashlan Greco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: The incidence of sport-related concussion is debatable. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report an extrapolated incidence of 1.6 to 3.2 million recreational/sports-related traumatic brain injuries a year, the suspicion is that the incidence is much higher (CDC, 2014). An important consideration in determining the incidence involves whether an athleteâ??s knowledge of what a concussion is influences their self-report of prior concussions.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to replicate and extend Pfirman (2015) in determining whether providing information about concussion will increase the self-report of a history of concussion. Furthermore, this study investigates whether there …

Nature Of The Verbal Fluency Task In Concussed Athletes, Paulina Mejia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Verbal fluency is a common test used to assess naming in individuals with brain injury. Troyer (1997) reported that naming components such as phonemic clusters and categorical switching might be more sensitive to the presence of brain injury than a reduction in the total number of words that is commonly used as a measure. Phonemic task refers to the F-A-S naming task while the semantic task refers to the animal naming task because of the frequent production of the phonemic cluster on the F-A-S and semantic clusters on the animal naming task (Troyer, 1997).

Purpose: The purpose of this …

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 Spanish-English Bilingual: A Cross-Classfication Comparison Of Maze Use In Children, Jessica Valles

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the continual increase of bilingual individuals in the United States, there is a critical need for research that can appropriately identify unique characteristics of language production for these individuals. In particular, maze use, or errors in production have been identified as a characteristic of language that typically occurs more in bilinguals' speech production than in monolingual productions. Research comparing bilingual maze use in individuals who are typically developing with bilingual maze use individuals who are language impaired is limited. To compare these bilingual children with language impairment with to their typically developing peers, children were paired by age, grade, …

Phonological Encoding Of Medial Vowels In Adults Who Stutter, Allison Elizabeth Jacobs

LSU Master's Theses

Previous data suggest the metrical properties of a word may influence the time course of phonological encoding, particularly in adults who stutter. The purpose of the present study is to examine phonological and metrical encoding skills in fluent and non-fluent adults, in particular the medial stress-bearing vowel. Investigators used a silent phoneme monitoring paradigm to assess reaction times for all phonemes within nonword CVCCVC stimuli. This paradigm required participants to manually identify target phonemes within a nonword to further isolate the level of phonological encoding from other processes. Eight participants were exposed to stimuli with initial-stress, and eight participants were …

Suicide Prevention: The Professional And Moral Responsibilities Of The Speech-Language Pathologist, Madelyn Anderson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible connection between suicide and stuttering, identify warning signs and risk factors of suicide as they apply to our clients, and examine the moral implications and professional responsibilities of speech-language pathologists as they pertain to suicide prevention. From the research I conducted, I found that, as a whole, the national community of speech-language pathologists does not recognize any correlation between stuttering and suicide. However, as dictated by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Code of Ethics, we as speech-language pathologists are obligated to make referrals outside of our profession as the need …

Stuttering And Tourette's: A Comparative Study, Mary Kate Prokopius

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Stuttering and Tourette’s: A Comparative Study

The purpose of this research study was to provide pilot data regarding the similarities and differences between stuttering and Tourette’s, specifically the physical, emotional and psychosocial aspects and the effects the behaviors had on the clients’ thoughts related to their disorder.

Recently published articles pertaining to stuttering and Tourette’s Syndrome were collected, analyzed and summarized in the paper. Once the literature review was completed, similarities and differences were deduced and explained in later chapters.

The overall results of this study showed that the two behavioral disorders have little overlap in terms of physiological and …

Exploring Speech And Language Skills In Gifted Children: A Parent Perspective, Amanda Brewer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this research study was to examine the speech and language skills of gifted students, and to further look into gifted students who have previously had speech or language therapy. Information pertaining to gifted children, typical speech and language development, and gifted children who have a delay in speech was evaluated. The information was used to develop a survey instrument that asked parents about their gifted child’s speech and language. The overall results of this study confirmed many previously known characteristics of gifted students. It also showed that expressive language skills were less developed than receptive language skills. …

Understanding The Stigma Of Hearing Loss And How If Affects The Patient And Treatment Process, Carolyn M. Zaitzew

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is a literature review on the topic of hearing loss related stigma and the effects it has on persons with hearing loss. There has not been very much research conducted on this topic, which limited the paper’s content. Through researching and analyzing previous studies, it was found that a stigma related to hearing loss still exists today and has multiple effects on persons with hearing loss. The stigma can put negative stress on patients with hearing loss, both psychologically and socially, and may even cause them to not seek or accept treatment when needed. Younger adults are more …

The Psychological Effects Of Cochlear Implants: A Comparison Of One Adult With A Cochlear Implant And One Without., Sarah Schwartzer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This study involved the development, implementation and analyzation of two qualitative case studies, with one involving a profoundly deaf individual who possesses a cochlear implant, the other with an individual who possesses normal hearing ranges. Participants were given two quantitative measures of observation, the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire and the Thought Control Questionnaire, before participating in a semi-structured interview that was intended to gather information about the individuals, their life experiences, and the factors of psychological flexibility, adaptability and resiliency as applied to their lives. The semi-structured interview involved a set list of questions that were posed to the individuals; …