Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Do Different Learning Environments Influence Graduate Students’ Professional Communication?, Lacey M. Beam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of two educational environments (jigsaw learning activity and standardized patient encounters) on speech-language pathology students’ professional communication when assessing and treating a voice disorder case study. Jigsaw activities are cooperative learning experiences that provide students opportunities to learn from one another. Studies have shown that students have improvements in learning new material, self-confidence, and communication skills (Wong & Driscoll, 2008; Asif et al., 2021). A standardized patient encounter provides a real-life clinical experience for students. There has been a mixed response to students improving their communication skills through …

Selective Mutism In Immigrant Children, Lauren Cummings

Honors Program Theses

Selective mutism is a highly debilitating anxiety disorder that is characterized by a child’s lack of verbal speech in certain situations, despite having the ability to speak (Elizur & Perednik, 2003). Children with selective mutism may present with a variety of symptoms, including high levels of anxiety and isolation, which significantly impacts their social and
language development, educational and occupational achievement, and mental health (Elizur & Perednik, 2003). Children who are diagnosed with selective mutism in early childhood often have communication or cognitive difficulties and may display higher rates of psychiatric disorders later in life compared to children without selective …

Speaker Encoding For Zero-Shot Speech Synthesis, Tristin W. Cory

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Spoken communication, for many, is an essential part of everyday life. Some individuals can lose or not be born with the ability to speak. To function on a day-to-day basis, these individuals find other ways of communication. Adaptive speech synthesis is one of those ways. It recreates a user’s previous voice or creates a voice that blends with their regional dialect. Current adaptive speech synthesis techniques that achieve human-like speech require thirty minutes, to a few hours of high-quality audio recordings of a target speaker. This amount of recorded audio is not commonly possessed by people in need of a …

Investigating The Role Of Phonological Awareness In The Training Of Phonetic Transcription With Slp Students, Jennifer Kay Binkley

Dissertations and Theses

A dissertation study was developed and completed to further explore the relationship between phonological awareness (PA) and phonetic transcription skills in undergraduate speech-language pathology students. A review of the literature provides gaps in knowledge which the proposal seeks to address. Based upon this literature review, the researcher compared PA skills of undergraduate students of various majors, to determine if there was a change in PA by taking a traditional phonetics course, and to explore phonetic transcription outcomes as the result of direct PA intervention with undergraduate SLP students. Quantitative analysis was used to answer three research questions, which were organized …

Knowledge And Training In Language Sample Analysis Of Us Speech-Language Pathology Graduate Students, Allegra Cornaglia

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play an integral role in identification and treatment of developmental language disorders (DLD). Best practices include the use of language sample analysis (LSA) as part of a comprehensive evaluation. However, LSA requires a specific set of foundational morphological and syntactic knowledge. Previous studies have shown a knowledge gap for both SLPs and SLP graduate students for other areas of morphosyntax and phonology. This study examined the language analysis skills of current SLP graduate students on a test of Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) analysis and Clausal Density (CD) and whether there were possible factors associated with …

Examining The Efficacy Of A Self-Paced Online Training For Goal Writing, Allison Rosborough

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Educational goals can control critical aspects of intervention and progress monitoring for students with disabilities and as such are a central feature of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). Despite its importance, school staff frequently report not receiving enough training or support on IEP documentation. Rosborough and Brandel (2020) investigated the quality of IEP goals written in the state of West Virginia. Findings indicated that professional development activities needed to be designed and analyzed related to immediate and long-term efficacy. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a self-paced, online training for goal writing. Participants were recruited by …

Implementation Of A Nonverbal Scrub Cap Identification System To Improve Communication And Perception Of Patient Safety Among Unfamiliar, De-Identified Staff Members In The Operating Room., Keri Ann Roskowinski

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Background: Operating room (OR), professionals deliver patient care with brief introductions, and roles were not always identified, and although team members wear identification (ID) badges, they were usually covered by sterile gowns and other routine personal protective equipment (PPE). Purpose: The aim of this Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) project was to determine if a simple intervention to apply the individual’s name and role to a scrub cap could improve identification, OR team communication, and consequently, patient safety. The participants in this project consisted of nurses, physicians, anesthesia providers, scrub technicians, students, medical sales representatives, and those that identified as …

Feasibility And Acceptability Of Administering A Functional Cognitive-Communication Assessment To Individuals With Self-Reported Concussion, Mackenzie Ann Brown

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Purpose: Individuals who experience ongoing symptoms after sustaining a mTBI may not receive the help they need because the deficits they endorse on self-report measures are not identified on current standardized cognitive assessments. The purpose of the current investigation is to determine how to better document ongoing cognitive-communication deficits and to characterize the nature of how these deficits impact daily life and communicative participation, using a multidimensional assessment protocol.

Method: A multiple case study design was selected to comprehensively document the cognitive-linguistic functioning of multiple individuals with concussion. Five participants completed one session over a telehealth platform that included four …

Parent And Child Characteristics Impacting Identification Of Children With Developmental Language Disorder (Dld), Sarah E. Floyd

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Purpose: Previous research has shown that children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and dyslexia are under-identified in the general population. Parent or caregiver concern is a primary referral tool for these conditions, but may fail to accurately align with the actual presence of a disorder. The purpose of this study was to examine child and parent characteristics related to a child’s likelihood of receiving a diagnosis of DLD.

Methods: Within a large, 5-year, longitudinal study, kindergartener performance on a battery of speech, language, and literacy measures was examined to identify children with and without DLD and possible risk of dyslexia. …

Aac Camp As A Pre- And Post- Service Training Model, Joanne Kim

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of participation in an AAC-based day camp as a pre-service training opportunity for students of speech-language pathology and a post-training opportunity for practicing speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Following the conclusion for the most recent iteration of the AAC Academy hosted by the Diagnostic Center of Central California, students and SLPs who volunteered within the past ten years were recruited via email to participate in semi-structured interviews. Upon thematic analysis of the interview transcripts, the following themes were conceptualized: (1) Many volunteers had some interest, if not experience, with AAC prior to …

The Effects Of Script Therapy In A Patient With Old Chronic Aphasia, Busra Ensar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

There are some gaps in the literature regarding the efficacy of script therapy in patients with chronic aphasia, particularly chronic aphasia that lasts for several years post-onset, in terms of treatments to improve functional communication during daily activities. This study investigates the relationship between script therapy and communication effectiveness and communicative efficiency. In this context, communication effectiveness was measured by the percent script correct, and communicative efficiency was measured by the total duration to produce the script and the mean duration of pauses at the beginning of sentences.

The efficacy of intensive script training on discourse effectiveness and efficiency was …

Standardizing Assessment Of Spoken Discourse In Aphasia: A Working Group With Deliverables, Tyson G. Harmon, Brielle C. Stark, Manaswita Dutta, Laura L. Murray, Lucy Bryant, Davida Fromm, Brian Macwhinney, Amy E. Ramage, Angela Roberts, Dirk B Den Ouden, Kris Brock, Katy Mckinney-Bock, Eun Jin Paek, Si On Yoon, Charalambos Themistocleous, Hyunsoo Yoo, Katharine Aveni, Stephanie Gutierrez, Saryu Sharma

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The heterogeneous nature of measures, methods, and analyses reported in the aphasia spoken discourse literature precludes comparison of outcomes across studies (e.g., meta-analyses) and inhibits replication. Furthermore, funding and time constraints significantly hinder collecting test-retest data on spoken discourse outcomes. This research note describes the development and structure of a working group, designed to address major gaps in the spoken discourse aphasia literature, including a lack of standardization in methodology, analysis, and reporting, as well as nominal data regarding the psychometric properties of spoken discourse outcomes. Method: The initial initiatives for this working group are to (a) propose recommendations …

Effects Of Hearing Aid Amplification On The Ability Of Individuals With Hearing Loss To Perceive Spectral Information, Angela Huebert, Marc Brennan

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Individuals with sensorineural hearing loss often struggle to understand speech even with the use of hearing aids; simply making sounds louder is not enough. Listeners decode various speech sounds with the help of spectral information, but how hearing aid amplification affects individuals’ ability to perceive those cues is not currently well understood. Altering the way hearing aids are programmed to provide amplification can potentially improve the ability of listeners with sensorineural hearing loss to access spectral information. The purpose of this study was to quantify the effects that hearing aid amplification has on the perception of spectral cues. Outcomes could …

Role Of Morphological Awareness In Language And Literacy In Children With And Without Developmental Language Disorder, Melissa Phelan

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Past research has shown phonological awareness is highly correlated with language and literacy success in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), but a less examined area of language and literacy is morphological awareness. Delayed morphology in children with DLD has been studied extensively in spoken language, but relatively little in written language in the DLD population. This study explored two research questions: 1) Is morphological awareness related to language and literacy success in children with and without DLD, and 2) Is morphological awareness impaired for those children with DLD and dyslexia similarly to that of phonological awareness. A …

Cross-Modal Reorganization From Both Visual And Somatosensory Modalities In Cochlear Implanted Children And Its Relationship To Speech Perception, Garrett Cardon, Theresa Hennesy, Julia Campbell, Hannah Glick, Don Bell-Souder

Faculty Publications

Hypothesis: We hypothesized that children with cochlear implants (CIs) who demonstrate cross-modal reorganization by vision also demonstrate cross-modal reorganization by somatosensation and that these processes are interrelated and impact speech perception. Background: Cross-modal reorganization, which occurs when a deprived sensory modality's cortical resources are recruited by other intact modalities, has been proposed as a source of variability underlying speech perception in deaf children with CIs. Visual and somatosensory cross-modal reorganization of auditory cortex have been documented separately in CI children, but reorganization in these modalities has not been documented within the same subjects. Our goal was to examine the relationship …

Do People With Apraxia Of Speech And Aphasia Improve Or Worsen Across Repeated Sequential Word Trials?, Tyson G. Harmon, Adam Jacks, Katarina L. Haley, Jessica D. Richardson, Elizabeth H. Lacey, Peter Turkeltaub

Faculty Publications

Purpose:

During motor speech examinations for suspected apraxia of speech (AOS), clients are routinely asked to repeat words several times sequentially. The purpose of this study was to understand the task in terms of the relationship among consecutive attempts. We asked to what extent phonemic accuracy changes across trials and whether the change is predicted by AOS diagnosis and sound production severity.

Method:

One hundred thirty-three participants were assigned to four diagnostic groups based on quantitative metrics (aphasia plus AOS, aphasia-only, and aphasia with two borderline speech profiles). Each participant produced four multisyllabic words 5 times consecutively. These productions were …

Effects Of An Interdisciplinary Communication Partner Training Program On Student Learning, Tyson G. Harmon, Mei-Ling Lin, Gabrielle Scronce, Adam Jacks

Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Communication partner training (CPT) involves educating conversation partners to implement communication strategies that facilitate improved interactions with people with aphasia (PWA). This study aimed to investigate (1) whether a CPT program increased the knowledge and confidence of students with and without a communication disorders background and (2) the differential effects of this training on students from different allied health disciplines. METHODS: Quasi-experimental design study with 6 adult volunteers with aphasia and 36 students (18 speech-language pathology [SLP] students and 18 physical therapy/occupational therapy [PT/OT] students). The CPT program was provided twice (in 2015 and 2016) as a single seminar …

Mazes In Spanish-English Dual Language Learners After Language Enrichment: A Case Study, Casey L. Taliancich-Klinger, Connie Summers, Kai J. Greene

Faculty Publications

ABSTRACTThe number of Spanish-English dual language learners (DLLs) in the United States continues toincrease every year. In the absence of developmental language norms for DLLs it is importantto learn more about typical language production characteristics to distinguish typical fromatypical language characteristics. An area of language production with conflicting results inthe literature is the production of mazes. Mazes are interruptions in the forward flow oflanguage in the form of interjections, repairs or revisions of words and phrases. At elevatedrates, mazes may interrupt the communication process. A common practice in classroomsettings is to provide support for DLLs through small group activities such …

Psycholinguistic Profiling Of Children With Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, Kirsten M. Russell, Sean M. Redmond, Andrea C. Ash

Faculty Publications

Language disorders are frequently comorbid with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT),a second attention disorder, may potentially explain some of the links between language disorders and ADHD. In this study we examined the psycholinguistic abilities of 207 children (mean age 7;10) with and without clinically significant levels of SCT symptoms to determine the degree to which symptoms of language disorder co-occur in cases of SCT. Analyses of children’s tense-marking, nonword repetition, and sentence recall indicated that deficits in these areas were not associated with SCT. Instead, SCT appears to be more closely aligned with features of social (pragmatic) …

Neural Correlates Of Syntactic Comprehension: A Longitudinal Study, Shannon M. Sheppard, Erin L. Meier, Kevin T. Kim, Bonnie L. Breining, Lynsey M. Keator, Bohao Tang, Brian Caffo, Argye E. Hillis

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Broca’s area is frequently implicated in sentence comprehension but its specific role is debated. Most lesion studies have investigated deficits at the chronic stage. We aimed (1) to use acute imaging to predict which left hemisphere stroke patients will recover sentence comprehension; and (2) to better understand the role of Broca’s area in sentence comprehension by investigating acute deficits prior to functional reorganization. We assessed comprehension of canonical and noncanonical sentences in 15 patients with left hemisphere stroke at acute and chronic stages. LASSO regression was used to conduct lesion symptom mapping analyses. Patients with more severe word-level comprehension deficits …