Thesis (M.A. in speech and hearing sciences)--Washington State University, May 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Apr. 30, 2010). "Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences." Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-54).

Thesis (M. Communication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Summary in English and Afrikaans. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> Aphasia is an acquired impairment of language secondary to neurological brain damage commonly seen in stroke, and is defined by impairment to communication through speech and language which can limit participation in work, family, and social settings. Standard aphasia treatment consists of behavioral therapy to restore or compensate for this impairment. Unfortunately, recovery is often incomplete with long-lasting residual communication deficits. </p><p> Enhancing the effects of behavioral therapy has long been a goal of aphasia researchers. Behavioral therapy takes advantage of neuroplasticity, the brain&rsquo;s ability to change, and a recent direction has been to use adjuvants to behavioral treatment to enhance these effects, even in the chronic stage of recovery. The two studies reported here use transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) for this purpose. tDCS provides low-level current that can hyper- or depolarize cortical neurons, to build on the neuroplastic capacity of the brain. In the studies reported here, the anode was placed over the left primary motor cortex, with the cathode over the right supraorbital region. Study one investigated whether tDCS administered prior to robotic motor therapy (36 sessions over 12 weeks) resulted in improvements in speech/language outcome measures, comparing a group receiving active tDCS with a group receiving sham tDCS. This study revealed some overall differences on selected speech and language measures from pre-test to post-test, although tDCS condition did not affect performance. One important finding this work revealed was a possible cross domain synergy between motor and speech-language therapy, even when no speech therapy was provided. </p><p> Study two examined whether the timing of tDCS relative to a speech/language treatment affects treatment outcomes. This study compared participants receiving tDCS immediately preceding computerized aphasia treatment to participants receiving tDCS and treatment simultaneously. A crossover design was employed so each participant also received sham tDCS for comparison. No interaction was found between stimulation type and timing (preceding or during) of aphasia treatment. Accordingly, the results were somewhat equivocal with respect to the best approach. Further investigation with larger sample sizes, longer times between tDCS conditions or multiple consecutive sessions may help clarify the role of tDCS timing in aphasia treatment.</p><p>

<p> This study investigated the acoustic characteristics that contribute to the perception of foreign-accentedness of English spoken by native Ewe speakers. Forty monosyllabic words spoken by four speakers were rated on accentedness by 109 participants; 51 with exposure to Ghanaian-accented-American English and 58 with none. The ratings and measurements of F1 and F2 values of the vowels were analyzed and compared. The results suggest that the perception of accentedness was influenced by the acoustic properties of vowels. Listeners rated L2 speakers as more accented than they did L1 speakers. Accentedness ratings did not correlate with comprehension of words, and finally, listeners with previous exposure to Ewe accented American English rated the non-native tokens as less accented than listeners without previous exposure. Previous exposure did not influence comprehension of tokens.</p><p>

Purpose: To examine pulse oximetry (PO) levels in healthy adult subjects across the adult age span, and to examine the same in a sample of individuals with severe and very severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and to compare their results. Method: PO levels were recorded via the BIOPAC Systems, Inc. (Goleta, CA) computer based data acquisition unit in conjunction with the Acqknowledge version 4.1 software. Subjects for this study were drawn from a sample of 60 healthy young men and women between the ages of 18 to 38 (30 males and 30 females) and a sample of 60 healthy older men and women (30 males and 30 females) aged 60 years and over. A clinical population of 11 COPD subjects (3 males, 8 females) with an age range of 43 to 82 also participated in the study. Each subject swallowed 10 ml of water three times, 10 ml of applesauce three times, and three small individual pieces of diced pears three times. Results: In the healthy adult group, a 2 (age) x 2 (gender) repeated-measures ANOVA revealed no statistically significant main effects for within-subject factors of bolus type or the interactions of bolus x gender, bolus x age or bolus x gender x age. For between-subject variables there was no main effect for gender but age was significant F(1, 116) = 36.94, p < .001 and the interaction of gender x age was significant F(1, 116) = 5.62, p = .019. For the COPD sample, a Friedman test did not reveal statistically significant differences across the bolus types. For the comparison between the healthy adults and COPD groups a Mann Whitney U test revealed that there were statistically significant differences between the groups for all the of the bolus types: U = 22, p = .011 for water, U = 26, p = .023 for applesauce, and U = 22, p = .011 for pears. Conclusions: Our study contributed information regarding the invariant nature of PO levels in healthy adult swallows across a range of consistencies (for a typical bolus volume). The same pattern was true for individuals with COPD. These results suggest that fluctuations in PO values might indicate respiratory compromise, though additional investigation is warranted to confirm this hypothesis. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication Science and Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2014. / October 24, 2014. / Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Clinical Swallowing Evaulation, Dysphagia, Normal and Abnormal Swallowing, Oxygen Desaturation, Pulse Oximetry / Includes bibliographical references. / Julie A. G. Stierwalt, Professor Directing Dissertation; Leonard L. LaPointe, Committee Member; Richard J. Morris, Committee Member.

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