Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

The Effect Of Rate Change On The Relative Timing Of Speakers With Multiple Sclerosis, Brandlynn N. Reister

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Relative timing ratios are a useful measure for determining the temporal regularities of speech. The timing intervals that make up these ratios are thought to be important when creating the motor plan for an utterance (Weismer & Fennell, 1985). In fact, these ratios have been shown to be remarkably stable, even when speakers deliberately increase their rate (Tuller & Kelso, 1984; Weismer & Fennell, 1985). The constancy of these ratios also has been demonstrated in speakers with known speech timing disturbances, like the dysarthrias associated with Parkinson's and Huntington's disease (Goberman & McMillan; Ludlow, Connor, & Bassich, 1987; Weismer & …

Nonword Processing In Bilingual Five Year Olds: Do Phonotactics Count?, Kyna Betancourt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Phonotactic processing is foundational to the word processing task in both monolingual and bilingual children (Li & Farkas, 2002; Pierrehumbert, 2001; Shook & Marian, 2013; Storkel & Morrisette, 2002). While the use of phonotactic information in word processing in monolingual children is relatively well documented, it is less well understood in bilingual children. The purpose of this study was to investigate how bilingual kindergartners process the phonotactic probabilities of their two languages. A set of nonwords was developed that manipulated the strength of phonotactic probability across both Spanish and English while also controlling the language environment of the experimental task …

Effects Of Speech Production Ability On A Measure Of Speech Perception Capacity In Young Children With Cochlear Implants And Their Articulation-Matched Peers, Victoria Beatriz Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With reductions in the age criterion for cochlear implantation, the need for age-appropriate measures of speech perception skills has increased. One recently developed tool that shows great promise for the clinical assessment of auditory speech perception capacity in young children with cochlear implants is the On-Line Imitative Test of Speech-Pattern Contrast Perception (OlimSpac). The OlimSpac requires a child to imitate nonword utterances by providing a verbal response. The child's perceptual abilities are inferred from the child's productions through having a listener, who is masked to the stimulus select the utterance produced by the child in an eight-alternative force-choice task. Although …

Treatment Effects Of Attention Process Training For An Individual With Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease, Kristen Michelle Ferguson

LSU Master's Theses

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the treatment efficacy of the Attention Process Training (APT; Sohlberg & Mateer, 2005), a therapeutic protocol designed for individuals who have sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI), on a person with Parkinson’s disease to determine if improvement of various attention processes and memory recall could be improved. Methods: We designed a phase I, multiple baseline A1-B-A2-A3, single-subject study with one participant diagnosed with idiopathic PD and self-reported attention impairments. We used Attention Process Training (APT) protocol (Sohlberg & Mateer, 2005) to train attention process 120-minutes per session, one time per week …

Attitudes About Voice And Voice Therapy Among Transgender Individuals, Stefanie E. Hays

LSU Master's Theses

Due to increased interest in the area of voice problems and treatment among transgender individuals in recent years, a study about vocal experiences, vocal handicap, and participation in treatment methods among this population is needed. This study examined vocal handicap among transgender women, transgender men, and individuals identifying as a non-binary gender through an online questionnaire. The goals of the study were to compare vocal handicap between transgender men and women as well as those who had participated in voice therapy and those who had not. Another goal was to identify reasons among transgender individuals for not participating in voice …

The Effect Of Cajun Status On Kindergartners' Use Of Five Grammar Structures, Corrina Spedale

LSU Master's Theses

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between Cajun status, as defined by location, and five grammatical structures of Cajun English (CE): zero marking of past tense, zero marking of third person singular, zero marking of copula is and are, and was-leveling. The data were from 35 kindergartners, 14 from a Cajun status school, 21 from a non-Cajun status school; 15 were male and 20 were female. The data compared rate-based differences between the Cajun status and non-Cajun status children’s productions of the five CE structures in transcribed language samples. Five independent samples t-tests revealed that …

Comparing The Treatment Effect Of Conversational And Traditional Aphasia Treatments On Linguistic Complexity Measures, Kelsey Ann Copperberg

LSU Master's Theses

Linguistic complexity is frequently analyzed in studies of child language acquisition and impairment (Heilmann, Miller, & Nockerts, 2010; Price, Hendricks, & Cook, 2010) and the language of aging adults (Capilouto, Wright, & Wagovich, 2005; Kemper & Sumner, 2001; Kemper, Thompson, & Marquis, 2001; Kynette & Kemper, 1986; Shewan & Henderson, 1988) to document changes over time. There is little, if any, literature applying linguistic measures to analyze the language of individuals with aphasia as well as to analyze effects of different treatment measures. The current study analyzed semantic and syntactic components of linguistic complexity used by people with aphasia (PWA) …

Brain Electrophysiological Correlates Of Masked Picture Priming In Fluent And Stuttering Adults, Kalie B. Morris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate mechanisms of real-time language production of adults who stutter.

Method: Data were analyzed for 19 typically fluent young adults (TFA) and 19 young adults who stutter (AWS). Participants performed a masked picture priming task where priming stimuli consisted of two conditions 1) Identity- a masked printed prime word identical to the picture target label, and 2) Unrelated- a masked printed prime word unrelated to the picture target label. Brain event-related potentials (ERPs), time-locked to pictures eliciting spontaneous naming, were recorded, as well as naming accuracy and reaction times.

Results: …

Speech Sensorimotor Learning Through A Virtual Vocal Tract, Jeffrey J. Berry, Cassandra North, Benjamin Meyers, Michael T. Johnson

Speech Pathology and Audiology Faculty Research and Publications

Studies of speech sensorimotor learning often manipulate auditory feedback by modifying isolated acoustic parameters such as formant frequency or fundamental frequency using near real-time resynthesis of a participant's speech. An alternative approach is to engage a participant in a total remapping of the sensorimotor working space using a virtual vocal tract. To support this approach for studying speech sensorimotor learning we have developed a system to control an articulatory synthesizer using electromagnetic articulography data. Articulator movement data from the NDI Wave System are streamed to a Maeda articulatory synthesizer. The resulting synthesized speech provides auditory feedback to the participant. This …

Supporting Narrative Retells For People With Aphasia Using Aac: Photographs Or Line Drawings? Text Or No Text?, Julie Griffith, Aimee R. Dietz, Kristy S.E. Weissling

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

People with aphasia (PWAs) have demonstrated the ability to learn augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices that employ traditional grid layouts to enhance their communication; however, the process is typically lengthy and yields limited generalization (Fox & Fried-Oken, 2001; Koul & Harding, 1998). In response, researchers have begun to investigate the use of visual scene displays (VSDs) to support the communication interactions of PWAs by capitalizing on their relatively intact episodic memory (Beukelman, Dietz, McKelvey, Hux, & Weissling, in press; Dietz, Beukelman, & McKelvey, 2006a; Dietz, McKelvey, Beukelman, Weissling, & Hux, 2006b; McKelvey, Dietz, Hux, Weissling, & Beukelman, 2007). High-technology …

There Is A Continued Need For Empirical Data Supporting The Treatment Of People With Aphasia In The Acute Care Setting Including The Use Of Modified Melodic Intonation Therapy, Miechelle L. Mckelvey, Kristy S.E. Weissling

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

Abstract from & commentary on: Conkly, D., Novac, E., Boissy, A. Bethoux, F., & Chemali, K. (2012). The effects of modified melodic intonation therapy on nonfluent aphasia: A pilot study. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 1462–1471.

Q: What are the immediate effects of Modified Melodic Intonation Therapy (MMIT) on the modified repetition and responsive subtests of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) in stroke patients with Broca’s aphasia?

While this study had several limitations, the basic premises—the exploration of the effectiveness of changes to traditional MIT and the exploration of treatment in very acute stages—were valuable. Further systematic …

Common Parietal Activation In Musical Mental Transformations Across Pitch And Time, Nicholas E.V. Foster, Andrea R. Halpern, Robert J. Zatorre

Faculty Journal Articles

We previously observed that mental manipulation of the pitch level or temporal organization of melodies results in functional activation in the human intraparietal sulcus (IPS), a region also associated with visuospatial transformation and numerical calculation. Two outstanding questions about these musical transformations are whether pitch and time depend on separate or common processing in IPS, and whether IPS recruitment in melodic tasks varies depending upon the degree of transformation required (as it does in mental rotation). In the present study we sought to answer these questions by applying functional magnetic resonance imaging while musicians performed closely matched mental transposition (pitch …

Analysing A New Mobile Bilateral Audiology Test For Children, Luke J. Brook

Theses : Honours

Hearing loss in Australian children, primarily Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, is a growing concern for the Australian public health sector. In certain rural communities up to 90 per cent of children have been found to experience some form of hearing loss. Although hearing loss can be the result of a number of different causes, including congenital influences, the most common cause of hearing loss in Australian children is attributed to a common middle ear infection, otitis media.

To address the issue, numerous solutions have been proposed, tested and implemented, although the problem persists due to geographic, environmental and cultural …

The Effects Of A Communication Partner Training Program, Stephanie Fanale

Masters Theses

Historically, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention has focused on improving the communication skills of the individual using AAC, with limited support given to the communication partners of AAC users (Light, Dattilo, English, & Gutierrez, 1992). However, Carter & Maxwell (1998) contended that the skills of the communication partner are of equal importance as the AAC user's skills. In addition, many researchers have reported that family-centered intervention should be implemented in the AAC population (Bruno & Dribbon, 1998; Saito & Turnbull, 2007; Sigafoos et al., 2004). Unfortunately, few studies have directly measured communication partners' skills to measure progress or have …

Sensorimotor Factors Influencing /R/ Production, Jill Vogt

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate if there was a difference in nonspeech single oral structure and function overall and within subsystems (tongue-jaw, tongue, lips, and jaw) and nonspeech oscillation tasks between children with typical articulation, children with /r/ errors who are stimulable for correct /r/, and children with /r/ errors who are not stimulable for correct /r/, as measured by an oral-motor assessment and subsection scores. A secondary research question explored if there was a difference between the groups in tasks which may be related to type of oral-motor deficit including: sensory/proprioceptive (as measured by an informal …

Evaluation Of Language Of Intervention On Expressive-Receptive Lexical Skills For Preschool Bilingual Children, Blanca Estela Cisneros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the expressive-receptive lexical skills gained in bilingual preschool children for both their native language (L1) and second language (L2) when provided a bilingual vocabulary intervention and compared to contrasting monolingual and controlled conditions. This group study assessed four treatment conditions: monolingual English intervention, monolingual Spanish intervention, bilingual English-Spanish intervention, and a controlled intervention condition receiving math instruction. English and Spanish expressive and receptive lexical skills were the dependent variables measured at pretest and posttest. After a brief 4 week intervention block, the bilingual group achieved greater gains in Spanish expressive lexical skills …

Examining Articulatory Kinematics Using Diadochokinesis In Concussed And Non-Concussed Individuals, Lindsay Deann Dolan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Cognitive and communicative deficits associated with traumatic brain injury are an active area of research. However, no research to date has reported on the functionality of motor speech following a concussion. A common tool used to evaluate the motor speech status of potentially impaired individuals is the measurement of the diadochokinetic speech rate. The purpose of this study is to investigate diadochokinetic speech rates in individuals who experience a sports-related concussion. Determining the nature and extent of motor speech involvement post concussion will contribute to the diagnosis, prognosis, and management of recovery. The present investigation will determine; (i) if …

Language Of Intervention In Bilingual Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Alejandra Carrillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Over the last few decades the United States has seen a heavy increase in the incidences of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Also increasing in the United States is the increase in multicultural and multilingual groups. Although both of these populations are increasing there is very limited information regarding the language abilities of bilingual individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder, the language used for intervention, and those servicing them. A survey was developed to gather information regarding the current practice trends used by Speech-Language clinicians with bilingual children with ASD. The study was conducted in El Paso, Texas a city located on the …

Benefits Of Baby Sign On Cognitive Development In Infants, Clarissa Navedo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Research in the area of baby sign language has increased dramatically over the past several years, however there is still a lack of research regarding baby signs effects on typical infant development, specifically in the area of cognition. The hypothesis of this study was that instruction of baby sign would be correlated with a significant increase in the development of cognition and language acquisition for infant participants. This study provided a five-week instructional course on baby sign for parents/caregivers to implement with their typically developing infants (n=11). The course provided instruction of baby signs, methods of implementation and encouragement to …

Event Related Potential Changes In A Two-Stimulus Auditory Oddball Task In Concussed College Athletes: A Linguistic Component, Paola G. Sanchez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

"Return to Play" decisions are done based on cognitive-communicative testing and clinical assessments; concussed athletes may benefit from electrophysiological testing for a more accurate representation of their recovery. The purpose of this study is to investigate the electrophysiological performance post-concussion analyzing the attentional differences using the traditional "oddball" paradigm with a CV linguistic component. Participants for this study were 6 male college athletes with a history of concussion and 10 participants with no history of concussion (controls). Athletes were evaluated using event-related potentials (ERPs) that were recorded during a consonant-vowel (CV) auditory oddball task. Both the P300a and P300b components …