The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of a positive family history of speech and/or language impairments in an African American sample. The first phase of the study used questionnaires from the primary caregivers of 161 children. The questionnaires allowed for an examination of family history as a function of a childs socioeconomic level (+/- high school level of maternal education), educational placement (+/- receipt of services by a speech language clinician), and clinical status (+/- profile consistent with a diagnosis of SLI). The second phase of the study included interviews that were collected from 17 families who completed the questionnaires. All families who indicated a willingness to be interviewed were called, but only 17 were accessible by phone. Through the interviews, the family histories of the children were further documented. Results were that families from low socioeconomic backgrounds reported greater rates of a positive speech and/or language family history than those from middle socioeconomic backgrounds. Families of children classified as SLI also reported higher rates of a positive family history than the families of children who were not classified as SLI, and this comparison controlled for differences in the families socioeconomic levels. Significant differences in positive family history rates were not found to be related to the childrens educational placements. Results from the phone interviews revealed that of those children whose families reported a positive speech and/or language history, the number of members within each family who reported a positive history ranged from one to five (mean = 1.8 family members; SD = 1.3). Half of these members were in the childrens immediate families, while the other half were in their extended families. Given the limited number of families who participated in the interviews, an examination of these data as a function of the childrens socioeconomic status, educational placement, and clinical status was not completed. Together, these findings support the claim that the clinical diagnosis of SLI has a familial component, but future studies that seek to explore this familial component need to measure, and rigorously control for, the socioeconomic levels of children and their families.

The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of an actor-emotion strategy approach on changing communication attitudes in an adolescent child who stutters. The participant for this study was an eleven-year, ten-month old male attending a public middle school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana who presented with a severe fluency disorder. The participant attended group sessions Monday-Thursday from 9:00-12:00 for 6 weeks as part of a fluency day camp. The study used a worksheet-based measure to evaluate emotionality on a daily basis. Using an ABA withdrawal design, two analyses were completed. The first analysis examined the stability or reliability of the emotions worksheet as a measure to identify changes in emotional reaction to stuttering and speech. Results for Phase A showed an unusual range of total scores, and what appears to have been one outlier at measurement 2. Despite the relatively stable trends during phases B and A2, the overall data indicate that the emotion worksheet as applied in this study was not a reliable measure. The second analysis examined the data collected from the daily journal entries to determine efficacy of the actor-emotion strategy on changing communication attitude. In general, results show little change from the first baseline phase through the treatment phase. Withdrawal of the treatment in the second baseline phase also appeared to result in little change. The average for both comparisons was not reliably different, which suggests that the actor-emotion strategy as applied in this study was not an effective intervention technique for altering the childs emotional reaction to his speech.

The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical utility of two assessment measures for one group of nonstandard English dialect speakers, that of African-American English- (AAE) speaking children. The measures were mean length of utterance (MLU) and Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn). The clinical utility of these measures was examined by comparing MLU and IPSyn values of three different groups of AAE speakers to determine if these measures are influenced by a childs socio-economic status, dialect status, and/or clinical language status. An item analysis was also completed for IPSyn to determine if the items on this tool are appropriate language targets within AAE. Fifteen AAE-speaking children participated. They ranged in age from 66 to 79 months. Five were typically developing and solicited from middle-income families, five were typically developing and solicited from low-income families, and five were classified as specifically language impaired and solicited from caseloads of speech language clinicians. The latter group of children was drawn from both middle-income and low-income families. The findings indicated that the childrens MLU and IPSyn scores did not significantly differ as a function of their SES levels or dialect status. Unfortunately, the childrens MLU and IPSyn scores also did not differ as a function of their clinical language status. This finding suggests that these two tools, while unaffected by a childs SES and use of a nonstandard dialect, are not sensitive to childhood language impairment when children reach the age of six years. Results from the item analysis, however, showed that 83% of the items on IPSyn received a score of 1 or 2 by at least one child in each group, and only 1 item (i.e. use of tag questions) earned a score of zero by all participants in the study. This finding indicates that items on the IPSyn are appropriate targets for speakers of AAE and suggests that this tool may be useful for younger AAE speakers.

The purpose of this study was to obtain preliminary data on several factors that may influence the vibratory patterns of the vocal folds in addition to the hormonal fluctuations present during the menstrual cycle. These factors included patient reports of severity of reflux symptoms, severity of premenstrual symptoms, and severity of negative vocal hygiene behaviors prior to each evaluation. Ten subjects who did not experience complaints of their voice participated in the study. Data from four subjects who were not on birth control and four on birth control were analyzed for the first cycle, which included self-perception, acoustic analysis, and stroboscopic images. Four subjects not on birth control and two on birth control participated in a second cycle. Results demonstrated increased perturbations during the premenstrual phase followed by the ovulation phase for subjects who were not taking birth control. These subjects reported elevated reflux symptom and vocal hygiene values as well. The results of this preliminary study did not show a definite trend towards a certain phase the menstruation cycle on the vocal fold vibratory characteristics. However, a study with a larger subject number would aid in determining whether the trends that were seen in this study will reach a significant level and whether acid reflux and vocal hygiene issues could influence vocal quality as much as the hormonal fluctuations occurring during the different phases of the menstruation cycle.

The purpose of this study was to determine if reduced rate techniques have an effect on speech motor coordination of an adolescent. A literature review revealed that a reduced rate technique consistently promoted more fluent speech; however, the cause of that increase in fluency is not known. This study proposed three specific questions to determine if there was a shortening of the /s/ phoneme in clustered contexts when compared to singletons, if reducing the rate would cause the adolescent to produce more adult-like shortening patterns, and if the reduced rate technique caused a decrease in stuttering events. One eleven year old participated in this study by repeating previously recorded sentences each containing the /s/ phoneme in either cluster or singleton context. The single subject design utilized an ABA treatment method. Results indicated the reduced rate did have an affect on the length of the /s/ phoneme during the treatment phase; however, the treatment induced a lengthening of /s/ in SC contexts only. Since the length of /s/ in SC contexts increased and the length of /s/ in SV contexts remained the same, SC and SV /s/ durations were similar during phase B. This is not the adult-like shortening behavior we would expect. When the treatment method was removed during phase A2, the participant shortened /s/ in clusters in an adult-like manner. The number of stuttering events decreased dramatically with the reduced rate technique: 15 events during phase A1, 5 in B, and 3 in A2.

Although No Child Left Behind (2001) encourages the inclusion of all children within the regular curriculum, children with severe speech and physical disabilities rarely are provided with the literacy education provided to grade-level peers. This study taught alphabetic skills to three children with severe speech and physical impairments in the context of traditional alphabet books versus Phonic Faces Storybooks. Both storybooks were converted into e-books using Microsoft Office PowerPoint (Microsoft Office, 2003) and accessed using a single rocking lever switch. Two graphemes were selected based on incorrect responses from the pretest administration of the The Phonological Awareness Test (Roberson & Salter, 1997). The three subjects were exposed to the target graphemes using an ABAB design where the treatment conditions were reversed following the second baseline period. Five probes assessing phonological and grapheme awareness skills for targeted graphemes were administered following each baseline and intervention session. Results revealed greater improvements on letter/sound identification, sound to letter identification, identification of letter names, and identification of location of letters and sounds in all word positions words for all three subjects during the Phonic Faces Storybook phases. Improvement was also seen in the pre and posttest scores on seven subtests (rhyming, deletion, substitution, isolation, segmentation, blending and graphemes) of The Phonological Awareness Test (Roberson & Salter, 1997) and on word recognition, and silent and oral reading on the Informal Reading Inventory (Burns & Roe, 2006). Anecdotal evidence also demonstrated eagerness to work on the computer, preference for Phonic Faces e-books vs. alphabet books, and an increase in speech production (imitation of speech sounds). Limitations of the study, which include a small number of subjects and use of a small number of sounds need to be addressed in future research studies.

The ability of 20-24 month-old toddlers to recognize graphemes and phonemes was investigated by reading a Phonic Faces (PF) alphabet picture book. Phonic Faces iconically picture a letter in the mouth of a character producing the sound (the curve of the P looks like the top lip popping the /p/ sound). The book was composed of nine letters and was read individually to experimental subjects three times weekly for six weeks. The control group received no treatment, but engaged in individual play activities for comparable time. Following six-weeks the groups alternated so the former control group now received the alphabet book reading treatment and vice versa. Parents also completed a Home Literacy Questionnaire. Subjects were assessed using seven experimenter-designed measures. Three of the measures assessed letter awareness and discrimination skills and four comparable measures assessed phonemic knowledge as well as phoneme production in response to a letter. The tasks examined the ability to point to a letter or phoneme in the context of a PF card, to discriminate between three letters or phonemes represented by PF cards, to discriminate between two letters and one number, and to produce the correct phoneme when shown the letter within a PF card. Analyses across pre- and post-assessments showed that children were able to identify letters and phonemes following repeated exposure within the context of alphabet book reading and the picture support provided by the PF. Differences between the two groups were significant for both phases of the study, supporting the hypotheses that toddlers can learn letters and phonemes mediated through the context of alphabet book reading using the iconic faces. Particular gains were made in the areas of letter identification, letter discrimination with PF, and sound production. Overall gains were maintained after a six-week period without intervention. Additionally, there was a direct correlation between overall development of letter and phoneme awareness and direct literacy experiences at home as determined by the Home Literacy Questionnaire. These results call into question the current view that alphabet knowledge is a secondary language skill that is learned through explicit instruction rather than a language acquisition process.

The purpose of this study was to determine if involvement in intensive treatment would help a patient with aphasia, secondary to a cerebral vascular accident, accompanied by dysarthria, maintain skill levels during non-intensive treatment. A literature review uncovered numerous studies on intensive treatment. These studies discussed the improvements the subjects were able to make across various areas during the time of intensive treatment; however, very little research was available to indicate these subjects success when re-entering non-intensive treatment. This study proposed two specific questions: was the subject able to maintain word retrieval, speech intelligibility, and quality of life levels from intensive treatment after undergoing non-intensive treatment, and was the subject able to show improvement on the Lexical Retrieval subtest of the Aphasia Diagnostic Profile (ADP). One seventy-five year old male participated in this study, with involvement in six weeks of intensive treatment, six weeks of no treatment and six weeks of non-intensive treatment. This single subject study utilized the ABAABA design. Results indicated that during non-intensive treatment the subject was able to maintain his level of word retrieval skills, show gains in speech intelligibility, improve perceptions about quality of life and show improvement on the ADP.

The purpose of this study was to determine if given a period of intensive aphasia therapy a patient diagnosed with aphasia and an accompanying apraxia would maintain, gain, or lose skills during non-intensive therapy. A literature review revealed that intensive therapy has been shown to increase a patient's skill level in various areas. However, very little research was found that focused on how these patients' perform when reintroduced to typical aphasia therapy. This study proposed three specific questions: if the participant would retain her current level of word retrieval functioning evident after intensive therapy, if the participant would retain her current level of apraxic error production following intensive therapy, and if given intensive therapy the patient would experience maintenance, loss, or gains in the area of quality of life. One sixty-six year old female participated in this study by undergoing six weeks of intensive therapy, six weeks of no therapy, and six weeks of non-intensive aphasia therapy. The single subject subject study utilized an ABAABA design. Results indicated that maintenance, gains, and losses occurred across the areas assessed. In the area of word retrieval maintenance occured. In the area of apraxic errors maintenance, gains, and losses occurred, and in the area of quality of life a loss occurred for the patient.

Gesture use is a precursor to spoken language, and children who exhibit frequent use of gesture have higher rates of speech comprehension and production when tested between 13 and 15 months of age (Bates et al, 1989). The purpose of this study was to learn more about caregivers perceptions of the use and benefits of sign to their children. Fifty-three caregivers were recruited for the study, and 33 (62%) of these caregivers reported that they had used or were currently using baby signs with one of their children. Six (18%) of these caregivers also reported that their children presented developmental delays, whereas the others reported that their children were developing language typically. Information about these caregivers perceptions of signs was collected through a survey. Results indicated that no significant demographic differences existed between those who used baby signs and those who did not. The childs gender and childcare setting also did not influence a caregivers use of sign. Results also showed that caregivers began introducing baby signs to their children around 8 months of age, and the average number of different signs produced by these children was 17. The most common signs reported by the caregivers were more, eat, milk, thank you and all done. Perceived benefits of sign use included the facilitation of their childrens communication skills (40%), reduction of child frustration (32%), caregiver-child enjoyment (15%), and caregiver-child bonding (13%). The clinical status of the children minimally influenced the results; however, caregivers of children with developmental delays reported that they used signs more frequently and for a longer period of time than caregivers of children without developmental delay.