Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Motivating Factors Contributing To Speech-Language Pathology Assistant Students’ Choice Of Career Path, Nicole Wells, Danielle Osmelak, Angela M. Riccelli, Ravi Nigam

Journal of Applied Disciplines

Speech Language Pathology Assistants (SLPAs) are important support personnel who play a key role in the field of communication sciences and disorders. As the client base for communication disorders grows and diversifies, there is a continuous need for service providers, including SLPAs. Given the notable shortage of skilled communication sciences and disorders professionals and the advantages that assistants can provide, exploring SLPA career decision making is especially timely and important. The current study surveyed 75 students enrolled in SLPA programs across the United States via an online 12 question survey tool, regarding their demographics, reasons for choosing to become an …

An Slp Graduate Student’S Analysis Of Language In Children With Speech Sound Disorders, Madeline Janney, Donna Thomas

Journal of Interprofessional Practice and Collaboration

Purpose

Students in allied health professional (AHP) programs are instructed in evidenced-based evaluation practices and participate in interprofessional education and practice in order to identify disorders (e.g., speech, language, gross motor, fine motor) and provide effective treatment. The purpose of this paper is to present a small-scale research study of one graduate student in an AHP program that trains speech-language pathologists.

Method

A graduate student used retrospective methodology to examine the language skills of nine children with speech sound disorders (SSD) to determine if language impairment (LI) co-existed. The student learned and used a method of language sample analysis known …

Seven Years Of Csd Book Club: Nurturing Skills And Enhancing Worldviews, Lillian N. Stiegler, Rebecca Davis, Donna Thomas, Rebecca L. Parker, Martha Sherrill

Journal of Interprofessional Practice and Collaboration

Abstract

Purpose: CSD faculty at a mid-sized public university invited students and alumni to join a monthly book club focused on topics relevant to professional practice. The goals were (1) to create a pleasurable activity that would serve as a social and intellectual forum for open dialogue; (2) to attempt to address gaps in the less tangible “soft” skills that may not be directly or thoroughly taught in courses; and (3) to help participants see beyond personal interest silos and explore new topics.

Method: The work reviews and summarizes book club research from health care, education and CSD. It describes …

The Effectiveness Of An Educational Video Intervention For People With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Prior To Power Wheelchair Evaluations, Mark Blanchard, Kelly Connelley, Emily Copeland, Quinn Malbrough, Sara Pendleton, Ingrid Franc

Journal of Interprofessional Practice and Collaboration

PURPOSE: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that ultimately requires a power wheelchair (PWC) as the main source of mobility. The purpose of this project was to determine the effectiveness of an educational video to prepare a client for a PWC assessment by addressing four themes: PWC features, home environment, transportation, and client self-efficacy.

METHODS: An educational video was created and used in an ALS Multidisciplinary Clinic to better prepare clients for the PWC evaluation process. The effectiveness of this video was measured using a seven-question Likert scale survey focusing on the themes of the video. Individuals living …

Clinical Practice Patterns Of Speech-Language Pathologists For Screening And Identifying Dysphagia, Matthew Dumican, Zoë Thijs Ph.D., Kaitlynn Harper

Communication Sciences and Disorders: Faculty Publications

Purpose: To identify how speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the UnitedStates are screening for and identifying dysphagia. To do this, we examined theapproaches most often used to screen for dysphagia and the influence of contex-tual factors such as setting, continuing education and means of staying up to datewith the most current literature on screening approaches.Method: A web-based survey composed of 32 questions was developed andfield tested for content, relevance and workflow. The survey was distributedonline, via social media, online SLP forums and through the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Special Interest Group 13 (swallowing disor-ders). One hundred and thirty-seven clinicians from the United …

Collaborative Practices Between General Education Teachers And Teachers Of The Deaf/Hard Of Hearing: A Narrative Inquiry, Kayla Power

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The US Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) states that students with disabilities should receive instruction in the general education classroom as much as possible. This move has resulted in Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH) students spending more of their time in the general education classroom which has increased the need for collaboration between Teachers of the Deaf (TODs) and general education teachers. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine what collaboration between TODs and general education teachers looks like in an elementary school setting. Data consisted of individual interviews and observations. Using a narrative inquiry approach, I restory …

Grammatical Parallelism In Aphasia: A Lesion-Symptom Mapping Study, William Matchin, Dirk B. Den Ouden, Alexandra Basilakos, Brielle Caserta Stark, Julius Fridriksson, Gregory Hickok

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Sentence structure, or syntax, is potentially a uniquely creative aspect of the human mind. Neuropsychological experiments in the 1970s suggested parallel syntactic production and comprehension deficits in agrammatic Broca’s aphasia, thought to result from damage to syntactic mechanisms in Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe. This hypothesis was sometimes termed overarching agrammatism, converging with developments in linguistic theory concerning central syntactic mechanisms supporting language production and comprehension. However, the evidence supporting an association among receptive syntactic deficits, expressive agrammatism, and damage to frontal cortex is equivocal. In addition, the relationship among a distinct grammatical production deficit in aphasia, …

Core Vocabulary Intervention For Language-Delayed Kindergarten Students Using Augmentative And Alternative Communication, Angela M. Riccelli, Ravi Nigam

Journal of Applied Disciplines

The purpose of this study was to measure the impact of core vocabulary selection and the subsequent usage of a prescribed core vocabulary intervention over a period of one trimester (13-week period) and to report its impact on the overall communicative effectiveness of kindergarten students with language delay using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Study participants were provided with a pretest, speech and language therapy sessions in which intervention took place, and a posttest, which was administered by a speech–language pathologist. Intervention implementation commenced at the beginning of the school year and extended through the end of the trimester.13-week period. …

Physiological Arousal, Attentiveness, Emotion, And Word Retrieval In Aphasia: Effects And Relationships, Tyson G. Harmon, Angela Johnson, Vivian Ward, Shawn Nissen

Faculty Publications

Purpose: To (a) compare physiological arousal and attentiveness during a confrontational naming task between participants with aphasia and a control group across four conditions that varied according to emotionality of presented stimuli and (b) explore relationships among physiological arousal, attentiveness, perceived arousal, and naming performance. We hypothesized that participants with aphasia would show lower levels of arousal and attentiveness than control participants and that emotional conditions would lead to increased physiological arousal and attentiveness.

Method: Eight participants with aphasia and 15 control participants completed a confrontational naming task under positive, negative, and neutral conditions and rated their perceived arousal after …

Telling Stories In Noise: The Impact Of Background Noises On Spoken Language For People With Aphasia, Tyson G. Harmon, Brenna Scadden Nelson, Christopher Dromey, Kirsten Dixon Clawson

Faculty Publications

Purpose: Determine how different background noise conditions affect the spoken language of participants with aphasia during a story retell task.

Method: Participants included 11 adults with mild to moderate aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants retold stories in a silent baseline and five background noise conditions (conversation, monologue, phone call, cocktail, pink noise). Dependent measures of speech acoustics (fundamental frequency, mean intensity), speech fluency (speech rate, disfluent words), and language production (correct information units, lexical errors, lexical diversity, and cohesive utterances) were compared between groups and across conditions.

Results: Background noise resulted in higher fundamental frequency (F_{0 …}

Explainable Machine Learning Reveals The Relationship Between Hearing Thresholds And Speech-In-Noise Recognition In Listeners With Normal Audiograms, Jithin Raj Balan, Hansapani Rodrigo, Udit Saxena, Srikanta K. Mishra

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Some individuals complain of listening-in-noise difficulty despite having a normal audiogram. In this study, machine learning is applied to examine the extent to which hearing thresholds can predict speech-in-noise recognition among normal-hearing individuals. The specific goals were to (1) compare the performance of one standard (GAM, generalized additive model) and four machine learning models (ANN, artificial neural network; DNN, deep neural network; RF, random forest; XGBoost; eXtreme gradient boosting), and (2) examine the relative contribution of individual audiometric frequencies and demographic variables in predicting speech-in-noise recognition. Archival data included thresholds (0.25–16 kHz) and speech recognition thresholds (SRTs) from listeners with …

Using A Refutation Text To Increase Dyslexia Knowledge In Csd Undergraduates, Dorothy Shiver, Hannah Krimm

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a refutation text on conceptual knowledge of dyslexia among pre-professional undergraduate students in communication sciences and disorders (CSD). Undergraduate students (n = 60) majoring in CSD were randomly assigned to two groups. They completed a pre-test to evaluate their conceptual knowledge of dyslexia, then read a text about dyslexia. There were two texts: a refutation text and a control text. After reading the text, students completed a post-test to evaluate their conceptual knowledge of dyslexia. Four weeks after completing the post-test, students completed a maintenance test. The refutation text …

The Development Of Speech-Language Pathologists’ Counseling Self-Efficacy, Audrey Scott, Laura Plexico, Mary J. Sandage, Allison M. Plumb

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

The purpose of this investigation was to understand, from the perspective of speech-language pathologists (SLPs), what factors contribute to the essential structure of the experience of SLPs with low perceived counseling self-efficacy (CSE), the factors that contribute to the essential structure of the experience of SLPs with high perceived CSE, and how SLPs can transition from lower to higher perceived CSE. Ten female speech-language pathologists participated in interviews to discuss their counseling experiences and the development of their personal SLP CSE. The interviews were divided into 982 meaning units. The meaning units were categorized to determine the recurring themes contributing …

Better, Faster, Stronger: Outcomes Of A Language Sample Transcription And Coding Training Study, Diane A. Ogiela, Sarah A. Aldrich

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Although language sample analysis (LSA) is considered an important tool for high-quality child language assessment, surveys have found that its use is quite limited by school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Two of the reasons often cited are limited time and limited expertise (Kemp & Klee, 1997; Pavelko et al., 2016). This study aims to evaluate the outcomes of a language sample training program on SLP students’ accuracy, efficiency, and confidence with language sample transcription and coding. Upper-division SLP undergraduates and graduate students participated in a self-paced language sample training and practice program. Participants completed online language transcription and coding training and …

Using Audacity Software To Enhance Teaching And Learning Of Hearing Science Course: A Tutorial, Nilesh Washnik, Chandan Suresh, Chao-Yang Lee

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Audacity is a multi-platform free, open-source audio recorder and editor software. The advantage of Audacity software is as follows: easy installation and simple visual interface, no registrations or hardware requirements, and availability at no cost might make it a preferred software to carry out class demonstrations and lab activities for an undergraduate course in the Communication Sciences and Disorders discipline. The tutorial aims to illustrate how Audacity software can be used to demonstrate various psychoacoustic phenomena commonly taught in undergraduate Hearing Science courses. This tutorial is divided into fundamental and advanced concepts from the pedagogy and student learning standpoint. The …

Knowledge And Perceptions Of Slp Graduate Students Regarding Multiculturalism, Evy Jewell Hayes, Laura Amanda Mathews

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Populations in the United States rise daily, as do the number of people who are considered multicultural. With this comes a greater need for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who are able to assess and treat such individuals – a training process that begins in graduate programs. The primary objective of this study was to determine the knowledge and perceptions of graduate students in speech-language pathology as it pertains to multiculturalism. A survey was conducted to explore graduate students’ knowledge and perceptions of multicultural topics. Participants were recruited from programs in the southeastern United States via email. Just under 400 surveys were …

Can The Use Of Art And Active Learning Improve Retention And Observational Skill Confidence Among Audiology Graduate Students, Aurora Weaver, Ashlyn Wheat, Travis Riffle, Chelsea Powell, Lindsey Leonard, Ryleigh Prickett, Anna Hill, Larry Molt

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Human anatomy and physiology is considered one of the most difficult courses a student can take in a pre-health professional major in the US (Slominski, et. al., 2017). Research has revealed benefits of the use of art and anatomy within medical education, including improved clinical observational skills, greater understanding of disease and patient perspectives, and greater ability to empathize (Bell & Evans, 2014). Bell and Evans (2014) argue that observational skills are often overlooked in medical education. Use of art assignments in a graduate anatomy and physiology course will be discussed with reference to design and learning outcomes. The purpose …

Exploring Strategies For Modeling Sign Language Phonology, Lee Kezar, Riley Carlin, Tejas Srinivasan, Zed Sehyr, Naomi Caselli, Jesse Thomason

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Like speech, signs are composed of discrete, recombinable features called phonemes. Prior work shows that models which can recognize phonemes are better at sign recognition, motivating deeper exploration into strategies for modeling sign language phonemes. In this work, we learn graph convolution networks to recognize the sixteen phoneme “types” found in ASL-LEX 2.0. Specifically, we explore how learning strategies like multi-task and curriculum learning can leverage mutually useful information between phoneme types to facilitate better modeling of sign language phonemes. Results on the Sem-Lex Benchmark show that curriculum learning yields an average accuracy of 87% across all phoneme types, outperforming …

Impact Of Training And Experience On Hearing Loss Health Literacy In Speech-Language Pathologists, Ellen Claire Cooper

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore general health literacy, hearing loss health literacy, and confidence levels among SLPs with different levels of academic training and on-the-job experience related to hearing loss and to understand how SLPs felt their training and experience contributed to their hearing loss health literacy development. Across two aims, we evaluated predictors of SLPs’ hearing loss health literacy and SLP beliefs of how hearing loss health literacy is gained. The results from this study indicated that SLPs had high levels of general health literacy and but marginal to low levels of hearing loss health literacy. …

Understanding The Resources, Barriers, Facilitators And Interests About Aging And Dementia Research Of Community Members From The Rio Grande Valley, Karla Daniela Lopez Lorenzo, Rosa V. Pirela Mavarez, Gabriela Osuna, Kendra Stine, Nathalie Chacon, Noe Garza, Gladys E. Maestre

Research Symposium

Background: One of ten people aged 65 develops Alzheimer’s Disease and it is one of the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) is mostly constituted by Hispanic/Latinos (93%), a population that has a 1.5X increased risk of AD onset. Nevertheless, there are not enough resources to support people living with dementia and their care partners. This study will leverage research efforts deployed by the RGV Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center for Minority Aging Research to understand the social representations about the resources, barriers, facilitators, and interests of the RGV community about dementia and Alzheimer’s …