Communication Sciences and Disorders Commons^™

Student Learning Of Perceptual Skills Related To Differentiating Motor Speech Disorders, Johanna Boult, Jessica Brownell

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Purpose: This study aimed to determine if Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) graduate students’ perceptual skills improved after taking an MSD course by comparing pre- and posttest performance. The potential relationship between posttest perceptual-skills performance and academic performance was also investigated.Method: Before beginning instruction in MSD course content, students in a Master’s program in SLP were given a pretest (The Baseline & Post Learning Assessment of Listening & Diagnostics Skills (BPLALDS; Duffy, n.d.a)). Throughout the semester, students were exposed to didactic learning in the classroom supplemented by audio and video modules. At the end of the course, the BPLALDS was used …

Graduate Student Retention Of Prerequisite Course Content, Carol A. Tessel, Vikas Grover

Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders

Although most graduate schools for Speech-Language Pathology require the same core prerequisite classes, there is still variation in class requirements as well as variation in course content. Sixty-one instructors completed a survey regarding what they felt was essential course content from their prerequisite communication sciences and disorders (CSD) classes. This information was used to create a student survey that consisted of 55 multiple choice questions chosen to assess knowledge from eight typically required prerequisite courses. Students preparing to enter their first year of their master’s program were asked to take the survey. Instructors that reported teaching a course in audiology …

Brain Damage Associated With Impaired Sentence Processing In Acute Aphasia, Sigfus Kristinsson, Helga Thors, Grigori Yourganov, Sigridur Magnusdottir, Haukur Hjaltason, Brielle C. Stark, Alexandra Basilakos, Dirk B. Den Ouden, Leo Bonilha, Chris Rorden, Gregory Hickok, Argye E. Hillis, Julius Fridriksson

Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Articles and Research

Left-hemisphere brain damage commonly affects patients' abilities to produce and comprehend syntactic structures, a condition typically referred to as “agrammatism.” The neural correlates of agrammatism remain disputed in the literature, and distributed areas have been implicated as important predictors of performance, for example, Broca's area, anterior temporal areas, and temporo-parietal areas. We examined the association between damage to specific language-related ROIs and impaired syntactic processing in acute aphasia. We hypothesized that damage to the posterior middle temporal gyrus, and not Broca's area, would predict syntactic processing abilities. One hundred four individuals with acute aphasia (< 20 days poststroke) were included in the study. Structural MRI scans were obtained, and all participants completed a 45-item sentence–picture matching task. We performed an ROI-based stepwise regression analyses to examine the relation between cortical brain damage and impaired comprehension of canonical and noncanonical sentences. Damage to the posterior middle temporal gyrus was the strongest predictor for overall task performance and performance on noncanonical sentences. Damage to the angular gyrus was the strongest predictor for performance on canonical sentences, and damage to the posterior superior temporal gyrus predicted noncanonical scores when performance on canonical sentences was included as a cofactor. Overall, our models showed that damage to temporo-parietal and posterior temporal areas was associated with impaired syntactic comprehension. Our results indicate that the temporo-parietal area is crucially implicated in complex syntactic processing, whereas the role of Broca's area may be complementary.

Investigating The Modulatory Effect Of Expectations On Memory Retrieval During Sentence Comprehension, Luca Campanelli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Memory retrieval and probabilistic expectations are recognized factors in sentence comprehension that capture two different critical aspects of processing difficulty: the cost of retrieving and integrating previously processed elements with the new input words and the cost of incorrect predictions about upcoming words or structures in a sentence. Although these two factors have independently received substantial support from the extant literature, how they interact remains poorly understood. This study investigated memory retrieval, more specifically retrieval interference, and lexical-semantic expectations in three reading experiments, pitting these factors against each other to observe how they interact. Overall, results showed that retrieving and …

Direct And Indirect Treatment Effects In Multilingual People With Aphasia, Aviva Lerman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Successfully assessing and treating aphasia in multilingual people requires a detailed understanding of the mechanisms underlying language processing in the multilingual population, and the potential impairments to those mechanisms. The balance between spreading activation of language processes via treatment and controlling interference of competing items within the lexico-semantic networks appears to be a key factor in determining whether treatment effects generalise within and across languages in multilingual people with aphasia (Kiran, Sandberg, Gray, Ascenso, & Kester, 2013).

This balance can be exploited through treatment, which, if carefully chosen, should maximise potential within- and cross-language generalisation. One treatment that has …

Speech Motor Control In Younger And Older Adults: The Effect Of Age And Individual Differences On Speech Error Production, Katherine M. Dawson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation investigates three main issues in speech motor control, all of which are explored through the lens of speech error production. The speech error elicitation task used is the alternating onset, identical coda (e.g. ‘top cop’) paradigm, which in this incarnation is executed in time to a rate-increasing metronome. The first experimental chapter asks why some speakers may be more prone to the production of speech errors than others, from an individual differences perspective. A number of speaker attributes are taken into account, including age (older and younger adults), performance on a subset of cognitive tasks, as well as …

Acquisition And Development Of Verb/Predicate Chaining In Hebrew, Ruth Aronson Berman, Lyle Lustigman

Faculty Publications

The study considers development and use of verb/predicate chaining constructions by Hebrew speakers from early childhood to adolescence, based on analysis of authentic conversational and narrative corpora. Three types of constructions are analyzed, ordered hierarchically by degree of cohesivity and obligatoriness of chaining: (1) monoclausal complex predicates (the “extended predicates” of traditional Hebrew grammars); (2) coreferential interclausal predicate chaining; and (3) discursively motivated topic chaining. Relevant typological features of Modern Hebrew are reviewed as accounting for the absence of canonical clause chaining in the language (the paucity of non-finite constructions in everyday usage, absence of an uninflected basic form of …

An Experimental Analysis Of Voice Volume For Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Arturo Garcia

Thesis Projects

Inappropriate prosodic production is an often observed, but rarely treated, communication skill deficit for individuals with autism. Expanding on previous literature, we conducted a functional analysis on the voice volume responses (VVR) of two children with ASD utilizing similar procedures to those from Edgerton and Wine (2017). Further, we evaluated the efficacy of using visual feedback from an app and a function-based treatment to decrease inappropriate VVR and increase appropriate VVR. Results of the functional analysis indicated loud VVR was maintained by social negative reinforcement (escape from demands) for one participant and by both social negative and automatic reinforcement for …

Teaming For Transition: Interprofessional Collaboration, Megan Sturdivant, Emily Thompson, Sam Skelton, Rebecca Mallory

2020 Honors Symposium

The transition from youth to young adult for individuals with severe disabilities is difficult, provides few opportunities for employment, and offers less of a chance to connect with friends and engage with people. This research presents ways that speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, school counselors, and special educators can collaborate to create a successful transition process for individuals with severe disabilities.

Development Of Early Social Interactions In Infants Exposed To Artificial Intelligence From Birth, Anna Vest

2020 Honors Symposium

Emersion in a ‘smart’ world of technology starts the day an infant enters the door of a home shared with Amazon Alexa, Siri, Nest, and perhaps a smart baby bassinet. This exposure raises a question about how artificial intelligence might yield a different experience in social and interactive life for infants that have been exposed to it from their earliest days.

Working Memory And Executive Function In Young Adults: Hearing, What Is It Good For?, Addison Lentz

2020 Honors Symposium

Little is understood about how hearing loss impacts cognition in young adults. This presentation discusses the results of an experimental study that examined these constructs in young adults with a simulated hearing loss.

Hearing Loss And Working Memory In Young Adults, Ashton Robbins

2020 Honors Symposium

This study examined the relationship between hearing loss and working memory in young adults with normal hearing (ages 18-35) through the analysis of two NIH toolbox assessments completed by participants when exposed to moderate hearing loss using an atraumatic methodology. This study is relevant for a variety of health professions.

Graduate Handbook, Communication Disorders & Sciences

College of Health and Human Services Handbooks

Updated 2020.

Undergraduate Clinic Manual, Communication Disorders & Sciences

College of Health and Human Services Handbooks

Updated 2020.

The Role Of Behavioral Inhibition For Conversational Speech And Language Characteristics Of Preschool-Age Children Who Stutter, Victoria Tumanova, Carly Woods, Rachel Razza

Communication Sciences and Disorders - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Qualitative Case Review Of A Male With Down Syndrome, Mary Josephine Hoyer

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal condition in the United States. In the United States, about one of every 700 babies is diagnosed with Down syndrome. The purpose of this study was to assess pre-existing data on a 13-year-old male with a diagnosis of Down syndrome to contribute to research on this chromosomal abnormality. The individual received speech and language related services at Western Kentucky University beginning in 2007. Through analysis of previously collected data, the researcher created a qualitative case review that identified the progress of an individual with Down syndrome and emphasized what attributed to his progress. …

Speech Language Pathology Graduate Handbook - 2019-2020, Department Of Audiology And Speech-Language Pathology, East Tennessee State University

Speech-Language Pathology Handbooks

No abstract provided.

Ua94/6/1 Covid-19 Diary, Missy Thomas

Student/Alumni Personal Papers

COVID-19 diary submitted to WKU Archives by student Missy Thomas for fall 2020 semester.

Ua94/6/1 Covid-19 Diary, Anonymous

Student/Alumni Personal Papers

COVID-19 diary submitted to WKU Archives by student Isabelle Hobbs for fall semester 2020.

Social Conformity And The Line Judgment Task For Adolescents With Asd, Jamie Mcclendon

2020 Honors Symposium

The primary intent of this study is to address the conformity rates exhibited by individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

• The Solomon Asch line judgement task is used to test the effects of peer pressure on social conformity.
• There is a discrepancy in the conformity exhibited by typically developing individuals (TD) and ASD individuals.
• This study seeks to address the degree to which ASD individuals are affected by social influence and how likely they will be to conform.
• Conformity rates will be compared to that of TD college age students as well as students with various intellectual disabilities (ID).

This …