Speech Pathology and Audiology Commons^™

Does Vestibular Sensory Stimulation, In The Form Of Slow, Linear Swinging, Change The Modes Of Communication Among Children With Autism?, Katherine A. Gallaher

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this study was to determine if children with autism receiving vestibular sensory stimulation (VSS) in the form of slow, linear swinging, had any change or progression in their modes of communication when compared to children with autism who received a free-play period (nVSS) during speech-language (SL) therapy. Over the course of therapy, each child’s response mode was recorded as a gesture, vocalization, gesture + vocalization, or an utterance, and each mode was a dependent variable (DV) in this study. Participants who received VSS treatment were expected to have a greater improvement on the progression of modes, such …

Quality Of Life Indices In Brain Injury: A Pilot Investigation, Lauren Kristine Maher

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

This IRB approved study explores the scope of acquired brain injury (ABI) as it affects an individual’s perceived quality of life and how measurement informs clinical decisions. Quality of life is an important consideration for persons with ABI, since research indicates acquired brain injury can lead to personality changes such as depression, anxiety, and aggression not previously exhibited (Greve et al., 2001). When treating persons with ABI, healthcare professionals must be able to reliably measure and track their client’s perceived quality of life. This pilot study included 35 clients receiving community-based intervention at Crossroads to Brain Injury Recovery, Inc. (Crossroads) …

Pre-Pulse Inhibition Assessment Of Sound Localization In Mice, Kathryn C. Brooks

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of my Honors Research Project was to assist Dr. Megan

Klingenberg in completing part of the research in her final dissertation project. Dr.

Klingenberg’s project was based off of a study done by Allen and Ison in 2010.

This study tested the auditory spatial acuity of mice using pre-pulse inhibition of

the startle reflex as the response for detecting the sound stimulus. The goal of

Dr. Klingenberg’s AuD project was “to explore the methodological, functional, and

genetic influences on sound localization using pre-pulse inhibition of the acoustic

startle response in mice”. Dr. Klingenberg’s project was broken into three …

Binaural Listening In Young And Middle-Aged Adults: Interaural Phase Differences And Speech-In-Noise Measures, Caitlin Cotter

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Difficulty understanding speech in the presence of noise is a common complaint of middle-aged and older adults with and without hearing loss. There is an incomplete picture of what contributes to difficulties understanding speech-in-noise in adults who have normal audiograms. As humans we listen binaurally, so declines in binaural processing may contribute to speech-in-noise difficulties. We examined the effects of age on the upper frequency limit of interaural phase difference (IPD) detection and IPD detection at fixed frequencies. We also examined a speech-in-noise measure of spatial separation across young and middle-aged, normal-hearing individuals.

Participants were young (n=12) and middle-aged (n=8) …

Speech Function In Persons With Parkinson's Disease: Effects Of Environment, Task And Treatment, Carrie E. Rountrey

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a degenerative neurological disease affecting aspects of movement, including speech. Persons with PD are reported to have better speech functioning in the clinical setting than in the home setting, but this has not been quantified. New methodologies in ambulatory measures of speech are emerging that allow investigation of non-clinical settings.

The following questions are addressed: Is speech different between environments in PD and in healthy controls? Can clinical tasks predict speech behaviors in the home? Is treatment proven effective by measures in the home? What can we glean from methods of measurement of speech function in …

Hyolaryngeal Kinematics And Swallow Patterning In Normal And Disordered Swallowing, Seng Mun Wong

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Hyoid and laryngeal movements contribute to laryngeal vestibule closure and upper esophageal sphincter (UES) opening for safe swallowing. However, the extent of movement required for achieving these goals, and the interaction between hyoid and laryngeal movements during swallowing are unknown. Despite impairment in vestibule closure and UES opening, patients with dysphagia may exhibit reduced, increased or similar hyolaryngeal displacements as healthy individuals. This limits the delineation between normal and disordered swallowing. We investigated whether anatomical differences in hyolaryngeal positions and the extent of laryngeal vestibule opening at rest would better predict hyolaryngeal displacements and the extent of vestibule closure during …

Effects Of Training And Lung Volume Levels On Voice Onset Control And Cortical Activation In Singers, Nicholas A. Barone

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Singers need to counteract respiratory elastic recoil at high and low lung volume levels (LVLs) to maintain consistent airflow and pressure while singing. Professionally trained singers modify their vocal and respiratory systems creating a physiologically stable and perceptually pleasing voice quality at varying LVLs. In manuscript 1, we compared non-singers and singers on the initiation of a voiceless plosive followed by a vowel at low (30% vital capacity, VC), intermediate (50%VC), and high (80%VC) LVLs. In manuscript 2, we examined how vocal students (singers in manuscript 1) learn to control their voice onset at varying LVLs before and after a …

Functional Recovery: A Mixed Methods Study Of The Specific Variables Within A Post-Hospital Inter-Disciplinary Brain Injury Rehabilitation - Residential Program, Victoria Harding

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The mixed methods explanatory design study examined specific constructs of Post Hospital Interdisciplinary Brain Injury Rehabilitation – Residential (PHIDBIR-R) programs that positively influenced gains in function. The investigation involved exploring the phenomenon of individuals’ experiences while participating in a PHIDBIR-R program as part of recovery from brain injury. The study’ primary purpose was to understand individuals who make the greatest gains in function while participating in these programs, as measured by the Mayo-Portland Adaptability Inventory-4 (MPAI-4) change scores from admission to discharge and what are the components of these programs that may contribute to individuals’ gains in function.

Data were …

The Effect Of Taste On Swallowing Function, Rachel Mulheren

Dissertations, 2014-2019

This study investigated the effects of taste on swallowing frequency and cortical activation in the swallowing network. The effects of salivary flow and taster status were also examined, along with genetic taster status. The effects of a 3ml bolus compared sour, sour with slow infusion, sweet, water, and water with infusion. Swallowing frequency was significantly higher 0-15 seconds after bolus delivery than 16-30 seconds. Swallowing frequency was higher in the sour conditions, whereas sweet and water did not differ. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy recordings measured changes in blood oxygenation (HbO) in the right and left hemispheres in the premotor, S1 and …

The Effect Of Auditory Fatigue On Reaction Time In Normal Hearing Listeners, Beth I. Hulvey

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Hearing impaired individuals often report feeling fatigue at the end of the day. These individuals are forced to exert more cognitive effort throughout the day as they strain to understand speech in an ever-changing auditory environment through an impaired/degraded auditory system (Rabbitt, 1991). Today’s digital hearing aids attempt to increase audibility and relieve cognitive strain through advanced signal processing techniques such as digital noise reduction (DNR). Recent research regarding noise and its effects on auditory fatigue in hearing impaired listeners suggests that DNR may reduce the effects of auditory fatigue (Sarampalis et al, 2009). The overarching goal of a future …

Pre-Pulse Inhibition Assessment Of Sound Localization In Mice: Methodological, Functional, And Genetic Considerations, Megan Klingenberg

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Sound localization is an important aspect of normal hearing. The Eph/ephin family of signaling proteins, studied here, is known to guide the formation of central auditory connections in early development, particularly topographic inputs from the lateral superior olive (LSO) to the inferior colliculus (IC). Processing in the LSO and its influences on the IC are known to be heavily involved in sound localization tasks. One way to study sound localization in mice is through pre-pulse inhibition (PPI). PPI is the phenomenon by which a weak prestimulus inhibits the response to a subsequent startle stimulus. In studying sound localization, the prestimulus …

Examining Monaural And Binaural Measures Of Phase-Locking As A Function Of Age, Larissa M. Heckler

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Understanding speech in the presence of background noise is a common complaint of middle-aged and older listeners with clinically normal audiograms. There is great interest in understanding how age-related changes in auditory physiology make it harder for older adults to understand speech in difficult listening situations, compared to young listeners. It was recently reported that middle-aged and older normal-hearing listeners showed frequency-dependent, age-related declines in the behavioral and physiological detection of interaural phase differences (Grose & Mamo, 2010; Ross et al, 2007). There is also evidence of an age-related, frequency-dependent decline in the frequency-following response (FFR) (Clinard et al., 2010), …

Training To Avoid Distractions, Cara E. Sanderson

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Introduction: Auditory training has been extensively studied and applied to training software that is currently available for children with attention, hearing, or speech/language difficulties. The extent to which training generalizes, or transfers to an untrained task, is of great theoretical value. To our knowledge, there has not been a study that examines transference to a non-sensory masking task.

Methods: 16 adults without ADHD were trained in a contralateral masking task over the course of two days, with 900 trials per day. False alarm rates, thresholds, and reaction times were measured. Pre- and post-tests of contralateral and informational masking were conducted …

Effect Of Adaptive Frequency Lowering On Phoneme Identification And Sound Quality Of Music In Hearing-Impaired Listeners, Kaitlyn A. Sabri

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The most common type and configuration of hearing loss seen in clinics is high frequency sensorineural hearing loss. High-frequency hearing losses can lead to difficulties understanding speech in noise. Traditional amplification can aid in audibility of high-frequency information; however, its success is limited due to acoustic feedback, output limitations of the hearing aids, and loudness discomfort (Bohnert, Nyffeler, & Keilmann, 2010, Turner & Cummings, 1999). Cochlear dead regions further hinder the success of traditional hearing aids, as speech recognition may not improve with increased audibility (Turner & Cummings, 1999). Frequency-lowering algorithms, developed by four major hearing aid manufacturers, attempt to …

Dysarthria: A Study Of Effects On Communication, Casey Johnsen

Senior Honors Projects

Dysarthria is an impairment characterized by slow, weak, and imprecise muscle movements that affect one’s speech and communication. The specific characteristics of dysarthria vary depending on the site and extent of the lesion. Some general examples include articulatory-resonatory incompetence, imprecise consonants, distorted vowels, hypernasality, low pitch, harshness, strained-strangled voice and prosodic disturbances including slow rate. Dysarthria can be found in both children and adults, and is caused by neurologic disorders such as stroke, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, or muscular dystrophy. Dysarthria can negatively impact one’s social participation. The extra effort it takes to speak and the frustration of …

College Professors’ And Students’ Perceptions Toward College Students Who Stutter, Patricia N. Chastain

Honors Theses

Research on stuttering has reflected the perceptions of speech-language pathologists (Swartz, Gabel & Irani, 2009; Crichton-Smith, Wright & Stackhouse, 2003; Cooper & Cooper, 1996; Kalinowski, Armson, J., Stuart, A., & Lerman, J. W., 1993; Daniels, Panico, & Sudhoolt, 2011), students (Mayo & Mayo, 2013; Dorsey & Guenther, 2000), and professors (Dorsey & Guenther, 2000; Silverman, 1990; Ruscello et al., 1990) toward people who stutter (PWS). The findings of the aforementioned studies indicated there is neither a wholly positive or negative attitudinal trend in the perceptions towards PWS within or across groups. Only one study was conducted (15 years ago) that …

Assessing Vocabulary Of Children: Investigating The Evaluation And Instruction Of Basic Concepts, Rebecca Elizabeth Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Vocabulary knowledge of preschool children is a key factor in predicting literacy success in elementary school (Hammer, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2010). However, few deliberate attempts to teach basic concept vocabulary have been studied (Bowers & Schwarz, 2013; Wilson, 2004). The purpose of this research is to determine if large group explicit instruction with interactive activities of specific basic concept vocabulary will increase preschool children's understanding of basic concept terms when measured by a standardized basic concept assessment. This research will also assess the validity of a basic concept-curriculum based measure (BC-CBM) as an efficient tool to monitor a child's understanding …

The Discrimination Of Cv Synthetic Syllables As A Function Of Phonetic Training And Noise Conditions, Ryan Mulligan, Antony Joseph

AuD Capstone Projects - Communication Sciences and Disorders

The aim of this preliminary study was to examine the effect of two signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) and formal phonetic training on auditory discrimination of just noticeable differences (JND) among consonant vowel (CV) synthetic syllables. Fine-grain auditory discrimination abilities of 16 young-adults with undergraduate studies that included phonetic training and 17 young-adults with no phonetic training were assessed using a same/different discrimination task in a +3 SNR and a +13 SNR listening condition. Subjects listened to pairs of CV contrasts presented in rapid succession and indicated whether the contrastive syllables were the same or different. Results revealed a significant difference …

Preliteracy Skills Promoted In Children’S Spanish-Language Books, Katherine Marie Suter

Masters Theses

As of July 1, 2013, the latest census figures indicate that there are approximately 54 million Latinosliving in the U.S. (US Census Bureau, 2013). However, many Latino children still do not receive the services or resources they need to perform well academically. The primary aim of this research study is to determine if the books available to Spanish-speaking Latino¹ populations in two Michigan Counties contain features that might be used to facilitate beginning pre-literacy skills.

Children’s Spanish-language books from bookstores and public libraries were analyzed to determine the presence of features that might facilitate print awareness, phonological awareness, and …

Central Auditory Processing And The Link To Reading Ability In Adults, Lisa M. Brody

Honors Scholar Theses

What makes someone a good reader? What makes someone a poor reader? The root biological marker of reading ability has yet to be determined. Many scientists agree that phonological awareness, the understanding of speech sounds, and phonological decoding are key components of reading ability (Melby-Lervag, Lyster, & Hulme, 2012). In addition to this, new research suggests that the auditory system, specifically the timing of auditory processing in the brain, provides a crucial platform that supports the development of reading ability (Banai et al., 2009). This thesis provides empirical data to support the link between reading skill …