Browsing by Subject "Speech-language pathology"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Are Current Popular Children’s Books An Effective Tool in Language Intervention For Preschool Aged Children?
    (2015) Athmann, Allison
    The popular children’s book, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, which was published in 2013, was examined to determine its appropriateness with preschool-aged children with language impairments. The examination included qualitative measures based on the physical appearance of the book and quantitative measures involving an analysis of the book’s syntactic and semantic content. This book was then compared to previous research done by Kent Brorson and Kristin Lee Milbrath, to determine if Mr. Tiger Goes Wild is as appropriate as other books identified as in stimulating language development in language impaired preschool aged children.
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    Cumulative Intervention Intensity in Speech-Language Pathology Treatment Plans
    (2015) Cowles, Angela
    Purpose: To examine the extent to which intervention intensity parameters are present in speech-language pathology treatment plans in educational and medical settings. Method: 120 treatment plans (46 educational and 74 medical) from northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin were examined for intervention intensity parameters specified by Warren and colleagues (Warren, Fey & Yoder, 2007). Results: Educational records: 65% specified dose frequency and 28% specified total duration. Medical records: 69% specified dose frequency and 55% specified total duration. No treatment plans recorded all intervention intensity parameters. Conclusion: It is possible that (a) dosage parameters may not be well-known among practicing SLPs and/or (b) therapists may already document intervention intensity but not systematically within the treatment plans. If speech-language pathologists documented intervention intensity in one document, SLPs and researchers may have more resources to provide evidence-based practice for clients.
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    Effects of auditory anchors on perceptual judgment of hypernasality.
    (2010-07) Derksen, Lauren M.
    Perceptual judgment of hypernasality is a common and widely accepted practice among speech-language pathologists. However, because these judgments are somewhat subjective, reliability is an issue. This study examined the effect of auditory anchors on the validity of judgments of hypernasality in both natural and acoustically manipulated speech samples. In addition, this study investigated the effectiveness of auditory anchors developed using acoustic manipulation of first-formant bandwidth to simulate speech nasality. Anchors consisted of sentences of unprocessed speech and speech that had been acoustically altered by first formant bandwidth to 150 Hz, 300 Hz, and 500 Hz. The wider the bandwidth, the greater the expected nasality. Thirty subjects were assigned one of two groups. The “Anchor” group followed a training procedure to practice rating hypernasality by listening to speech samples and using visual feedback indicating most-correct judgments. The “No Anchor” groups were exposed only to speech with varied apparent nasality. All subjects then rated both acoustically manipulated as well as unprocessed speech and rated on perceived nasality of samples. Results indicated that unprocessed samples were perceived to be most natural, and those in the 150 Hz bandwidth condition were perceived to be the least natural. Surprisingly, samples with bandwidths of 300 and 500 Hz elicited ratings that were intermediate between unprocessed speech and 150 Hz. In this study, auditory anchors did not improve rater accuracy. To conclude, the training regimen presented in this study as a means for improving speech-language pathologists' rating of hypernasal speech can be confidently ruled out for practice of future professionals.
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    The effects of explicit knowledge of and implicit attitudes about race on adult perceptions of children’s speech.
    (2010-07) Christy, Andrea Lynn
    Summary abstract not available
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    The effects of real-life scene familiarity on accuracy when using Visual scenes displays to organize vocabulary on speech generating devices.
    (2011-03) Huwe, Katie Rose
    Purpose: Evidence supports using dynamic visual scene displays (VSDs) for children as between 25-40 months old. This study explored vocabulary type and the number of scenes displayed concurrently in relation to navigation skills. Method: Thirty-one children located 54 targeted items using a 2-page liked navigational page, on a dynamic VSD. Tests of mean accuracy were completed to examine participant performance selecting the scene across three opportunities. An analysis examining relationship between performance and chronological age and receptive language was also completed. Results: Results indicated participants increased their scene selection by an average 14% across three opportunities, without instruction. However, not occur for target symbol selection as a result of a ceiling effect occurred for the selection of individual symbols on the second page of the dynamic display.. . In addition, there was no relationship between either scene and and target symbol selection accuracy to either the age of the participant nor their receptive language in this study. Conclusion: Young children can improve their navigation skills as a result of exposure in the absence of instruction. Chronological age appeared to have a relationship that approached significance with respect to the accuracy with which participants’ selected the relevant scene depicting the target symbol, but did not appear to influence participants’ accuracy in locating photographs depicting a target referent on the second page of a visual scene display.
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    Student perceptions of professional identity and cultural competence.
    (2011-05) Godsey, Shannon Rose
    By the time they reach their second year of graduate school, students of speech-language pathology are well into the process of developing a professional identity and have been exposed to academic and clinical experiences designed to develop their cultural competence. This grounded theory study was designed to investigate how students perceive their professional identities and how they perceive the concept of cultural competence. The results of this study indicate students are learning the knowledge programs are designed to teach them, but current practices may be limiting. Students understand the importance of culturally competent care, but they tend to narrow their concepts of cultural competence to facts and characteristics of cultural groups they see as other than themselves. The conclusions from this research encourage the development of cultural competence and professional identity through a process of examining interactive cultural relationships. Within this approach instruction and clinical experiences would involve a consistent recognition that each interaction is a relationship and each interaction involves the coming together of cultures. Helping students recognize the cultural relationship in every interaction allows them to develop their cultural competence and professional identities regardless of the demographics of their geographical placement and will provide them with the skills to adapt and meet the needs of each client and cultural group. Finally, this approach can shift the discourse of the profession away from the concept of how other cultures are different from the norm to one that considers all forms of similarities and differences in the provider-client relationship.
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    Synthesized speech intelligibility and preschool age children: comparing accuracy for single word repetition with repeated exposure.
    (2010-08) Pinkoski, Carrie Lynn
    Purpose: This investigation examined the effect of repeated exposure to novel and repeated single spoken words in typical listening environments on the intelligibility of two synthesized speech voices and human recorded speech in preschool age children. Methods: Eighteen preschool aged participants listened to and repeated single words presented in human recorded speech, DECtalk™ Paul and AT & T Voice ™ Michael during five experimental sessions. Stimuli consisted of repeated and novel vocabulary items presented in each speech output condition for each session. Experimental sessions took place in the presence of background noise in participants’ classroom or home settings. Results: There was a significant main effect for voice as participants accurately identified significantly more words in the human recorded speech and AT & T Voice ™ ii Abstract Purpose: This investigation examined the effect of repeated exposure to novel and repeated single spoken words in typical listening environments on the intelligibility of two synthesized speech voices and human recorded speech in preschool age children. Methods: Eighteen preschool aged participants listened to and repeated single words presented in human recorded speech, DECtalk™ Paul and AT & T Voice ™ Michael during five experimental sessions. Stimuli consisted of repeated and novel vocabulary items presented in each speech output condition for each session. Experimental sessions took place in the presence of background noise in participants’ classroom or home settings. Results: There was a significant main effect for voice as participants accurately identified significantly more words in the human recorded speech and AT & T Voice ™ than in the DECtalk™ speech output conditions. When averaged across speech output conditions, children increased their accuracy as they participated in additional sessions. There was a statistically significant effect for the interaction between session and voice. DECtalk ™ had a slightly larger effect of session than AT&T Voice ™ and human recorded speech. There was a non-significant interaction between session and vocabulary type (repeated/ novel). When averaged across each voice type, repeated vocabulary words resulted in more accurate responses in later sessions than novel vocabulary words.