Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Increasing Written Language Skills Utilizing Writing Software And Traditional Methods, Caroline Larson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A grid based computer program, Clicker5, appeared to have many features that logically may assist struggling writers. It utilizes pictures, sound, speech synthesis, word banks and a spelling checker. Karemaker et al. (2008) examined the use of Clicker5 and observed increased attention and focus during reading, and greater gains in word recognition and rhyme awareness. Scattered research exists on some of the multimedia features that Clicker5 utilizes (e.g. auditory and visual instruction, specific feedback, student specific examples, Wissick & Gardner, 2000; composition processes and revision facilitation, MacArthur 2000; spell checkers with strategy instruction, and speech synthesis to increase error …

Psychometric Properties Of The Pyramids And Palm Trees Test, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Heather Wright, Gilson Capilouto

Speech and Hearing Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Pyramids and Palm Trees Test (PPT) is a nonverbal measure of semantic memory that has been frequently used in previous aphasia, agnosia, and dementia research. Very little psychometric information regarding the PPT is available. The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the PPT in a population of healthy college students. Results indicated that the PPT achieved poor test–retest reliability, failed to obtain adequate internal consistency, and demonstrated poor convergent validity, but showed acceptable discriminant validity. The results of this study suggest that the PPT lacks acceptable reliability and validity for use with a college …

Thinking Outside Of The Assessment Box: Assessing Social Communicative Functioning In Students With Asd, Janet L. Dodd

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

The assessment of a student suspected of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis requires the integration of information collected by a variety of professionals across various domains of functioning. One of the core deficits of students with ASD is a deficit related to social communicative competence (SCC). SCC requires the integration of language, social cognition, and higher order executive functions (Coggins, Olswang, Carmichael Olsson, & Timler, 2003) This article will propose an assessment model of social communicative functioning that was developed based on the SCC framework of Coggins and colleagues as a component of the Comprehensive Multidisciplinary Assessment Protocols for …

Do Vision And Audition Influence Bimanual Timing Coordination For In-Phase And Anti-Phase Patterns In A Linear Slide Task?, Elizabeth U. Grillo, Quincy Almeida, Timothy D. Lee, Katherine Verdolini Abbott

Communication Sciences & Disorders Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Supplemental Joint Storybook Reading On Preschool Students' Use Of Strident Sounds: A Preliminary Investigation, Jennifer C. Friberg, Katie K. Lund

Faculty Publications – Communication Sciences and Disorders

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of adding supplemental, joint storybook reading to existing cycles-based phonological remediation on the speech intelligibility of a group of preschool children with phonological disorders. Method: Sixteen preschool children, ages 3;8 (years; months) to 5;0, with moderate to severe phonological dis-orders served as the participant group for this study. The treatment group received treatment in the form of supple-mental joint storybook reading using books with a high frequency of strident sounds within the text of the story. Independent–samples t tests were used to study quantitative differences in the control and …

Iowa Conference On Communicative Disorders [Program, 2010], Iowa Conference On Communicative Disorders

Iowa Conference on Communicative Disorders Programs

The Iowa Conference on Communicative Disorders provides continuing education activities in speech- language pathology that are acceptable to the State of Iowa and the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association. Areas of emphasis include adults and pediatrics.

Parent Report Of Home Literacy Experiences In Children With And Without Speech And Language Impairments, Amanda Blair Grace

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate caregivers’ perceptions of their children’s literacy experiences and determine if their perceptions differed as a function of whether their children presented with speech and language impairment or with typical language development. Participants were caregivers of children, between the ages of 24 and 54 months. Eleven children presented with speech and language impairments (S/LI) and 14 children presented with typically developing (TD) language. Caregivers’ perceptions about early home literacy experiences were collected through a questionnaire. Results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups of caregivers’ responses to the …

Treatment Effect Of Maximum Performance Speech Therapy For Individuals With Parkinson's Disease And Dysarthria, Heidi Huckabee Michiels

LSU Master's Theses

The Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT™) has received much attention in the past decade for its use in the treatment of individuals with Parkinson’s disease (Jones, 2005; Ramig, Countryman, O'Brien, Hoehn, & Thompson, 1996; Ramig, Sapir, Countryman et al., 2001; Wohlert, 2004). This intensive program requires therapy four times a week for four weeks in order to improve perceptual characteristics of the voice, such as loudness. However, since LSVT™ was introduced, the rehabilitation industry has experienced systematic reductions in allowable frequency and duration of covered services. The result has been that individuals often cannot qualify for the rigorous LSVT™ protocol …

Conversational Skills Of An Autistic Teenager : A Pragmatic Analysis., Che An Abdul Ghani

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study aimed to analyze the conversational skills of an autistic teenager. The sample of this study was a 16 year old male autistic boy; and was referred to a Y in this study. He was verbal and had completed primary school education and at the time of the study he was attending a special education program. He speaks English and Malay, able to read and write in both languages fairly and has high cognitive ability. He is considered relatively intelligent by his teachers and his therapists. This study engaged three theories as its framework. They were Grice’s Theory (l975), …

Out Of The Mouths Of Babes: Prelinguistic Vocalizations In Infants At Risk For Autism Spectrum Disorders, Rhea Paul, Katyrzyna Chawarska, Yael Fuerst, Lauren Berkovits, Ami Klin

Communication Disorders Faculty Publications

Aims: To examine vocal production in infants at high risk for ASD due to the presence of an older sibling with ASD, To document changes in vocal behavior over the first year of life, To compare vocal behavior at 6, 9, and 12 months in children at high and low risk, To examine the relations between vocal behavior in the first year and outcome at 24 mo.

Auditory Training At Home For Adult Hearing Aid Users, Anne D. Olson

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Research has shown that re-learning to understand speech in noise can be a difficult task for adults with hearing aids (HA). If HA users want to improve their speech understanding ability, specific training may be needed. Auditory training is one type of intervention that may enhance listening abilities for adult HA users.

The purpose of this study was to examine the behavioral effects of an auditory training program called Listening and Communication Enhancement (LACE™) in the Digital Video Display (DVD) format in new and experienced HA users. No research to date has been conducted on the efficacy of this training …

Writing Motivation Of Students With Specific Language Impairments, Kyle Lee Brouwer

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study was designed to compare the writing motivation of students with specific language impairments with their non-disabled peers. Due to the cognitive and linguistic demands of the writing process, students with language impairments face unique difficulties during the writing process. It was hypothesized that students with specific language impairments will be more likely to report lower levels of perceived writing competence and be less autonomously motivated to write. Students in grades 3-5 in 11 schools (33 with specific language impairments, 242 non-disabled peers) completed self-report measures, designed from a Self-Determination Theory perspective, which measured the degree that students are …

A Survey Of Variables Influencing Speech-Language Pathologists' Use Of Evidence-Based Practice In Clinical Settings, Ailbhe Tressan Cormack

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Although the need for evidence-based practice (EBP) in speech-language pathology has been well attested, multiple barriers hamper its implementation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare variables influencing the use of EBP by practicing speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Method: Eighty-five SLPs based out of different primary work settings in El Paso, Texas responded to a survey addressing: 1. attitudes and perceived barriers toward EBP, 2. exposure to EBP, research methodology and statistics in graduate courses, 3. time in practice, 4. practice setting(s), 5. amount and nature of support for EBP in work settings, and 6. use of research literature …

Communicative Competence In Persons With Aphasia: The Impact Of Executive Function, Judy Marie Mikola

Wayne State University Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between executive function and performance on selected linguistic tasks in persons with aphasia secondary to left frontal lesions.

A group of 15 persons with aphasia (PWA) completed three communication board tasks of varying levels of complexity and structure. The subject's functional use of the picture/word communication board was tested during a Story Retelling task. In addition, the PWA's executive function skills were examined using six nonverbal tests. The PWA group performance scores were compared to that of the neurologically healthy control group.

Results demonstrated that the control group performed significantly …

Vocabulary Acquisition Of Bilingual Students Through The Implementation Of Dialogic Shared Storybook Reading Techniques, Samantha Kamille Ariaz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Children who are learning English as a second language and whose caregivers speak only Spanish were chosen to participate in the study. Parents were trained using Dialogic Shared Storybook Reading (DSSR) techniques (Whitehurst, 1988). The study was a single subject multiple baseline design across behaviors. Reading conditions were counterbalanced to control for acquisition of new vocabulary. There were a total of five participants, three children and two mothers (n=5). The participants were separated into two families. Each family was exposed to three reading book conditions while the parents implemented the specified techniques: 1. Shared reading with an electronic, bilingual Spanish/ …

Vowel Recognition From Continuous Articulatory Movements For Speaker-Dependent Applications, Jun Wang, Jordan R. Green, Ashok Samal, Tom D. Carrell

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

A novel approach was developed to recognize vowels from continuous tongue and lip movements. Vowels were classified based on movement patterns (rather than on derived articulatory features, e.g., lip opening) using a machine learning approach. Recognition accuracy on a single-speaker dataset was 94.02% with a very short latency. Recognition accuracy was better for high vowels than for low vowels. This finding parallels previous empirical findings on tongue movements during vowels. The recognition algorithm was then used to drive an articulation-to-acoustics synthesizer. The synthesizer recognizes vowels from continuous input stream of tongue and lip movements and plays the corresponding sound samples …

Effect Of Prolonged Pacifier Use On Speech Articulation, Danielle Laprairie

Masters Theses

The hypothesis of the current research study was that children who frequently use pacifiers past the age of 2 years would display more articulation errors and patterns than children with limited or no pacifier use. The specific research question was whether there was a difference in articulation errors between children who used a pacifier and children who did not use a pacifier for a prolonged duration and frequency. Experimental subjects included seven children who had used a pacifier for at least 2 years and who were either currently using a pacifier or who had discontinued using a pacifier within 6 …

Behaviors And Beliefs Of African American Caregivers As Related To Their Children's Language-Literacy Development, Lekeitha Renee' Morris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined African American (AA) caregivers’ beliefs about their children’s language-literacy development and their book reading behaviors with their children as a function of socioeconomic status (SES). Caregivers’ behaviors were examined before, during, and after a three-day caregiver training program that targeted four behaviors (i.e., tracking print, reference to print, text to life, and interpretations). Participants were 20 caregiver-child dyads classified as Low-SES (LSES) or Middle-SES (MSES) based on the caregivers’ level of education. Children were typically developing girls between the ages of four and five years. At pre-test, the two groups of caregivers differed in some of their …

Language, Meaning, Context, And Functional Communication, Elizabeth Armstrong, Alison Ferguson

Research outputs pre 2011

No abstract provided.

Skill Acquisition In Skin Cancer Detection, Craig Speelman, Katie Martin, Steven Flower, Terry Simpson

Research outputs pre 2011

Previous research has shown that the ability to detect potentially dangerous skin lesions is not improved by viewing a pamphlet describing the characteristic features of such lesions. A different approach to improving this skill was investigated in this study. 100 student recruits were tested to investigate the effect of practice at distinguishing between dangerous and nondangerous skin lesions. Around 30 minutes of such practice, viewing 360 pictures of skin lesions, provided a significant advantage in making decisions about a target set of dangerous and nondangerous lesions, compared to no practice or practice with a filler task. Viewing a skin cancer …