No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine the overall effectiveness of vestibular rehabilitation in a variety of etiologies and outcome measures. Eight experimental studies that examined vestibular therapies were collected and coded based on subject and treatment characteristics. These studies measured a total of 44 test conditions. An overall mean effect size of 1.342 was calculated. This suggests that in general, patients receiving vestibular therapy improve from the 50th percentile to the 92nd percentile. Next, the data was subdivided based on outcome measures, and the effectiveness of therapy pertaining to those categories is discussed. Additionally, each sample article was scored for reliability and validity. Those scores were used to weigh the effect sizes resulting in a weighted mean effect size of 1.09. Even when corrected for reliability and validity, vestibular rehabilitation yields an improvement of more than one standard deviation over the average disordered patient.

An understanding of the normal processes of second language acquisition can aid speech-language pathologists and educators working with young bilingual children. Knowledge of proper assessment practices may reduce incorrect classifications of normal bilingual children as having language disorders. The purpose of this study was to determine whether young bilingual children are able to differentiate use of their two languages and at what age they are able to show this differentiation. Specifically, can 21 to 31 month old children differentiate between their two languages of Spanish and English. Five Spanish/English bilingual children, with a negative family history for speech and language problems, were selected for this study. Data for the children were collected via a parental questionnaire, i.e., the Spanish and English versions of the MacArthur Communication Development Inventory (CDI) (1989). Parents were instructed to indicate the words their child produced spontaneously. Results indicated a wide range of responses for translation equi val en ts, total conceptual vocabulary, total vocabulary, and singlets. When a ratio of singlets to translation equivalents was calculated for Spanish, English, and combined languages, then a high percentage of translation equivalents was obtained ( i.e., 31 %, 57%, and 25%) respectively. These results support the work of Pearson, Oller, and Fernandez (1995), thus, seemingly rejecting the "contrast principle" (i.e., young children do not accept cross language synonyms). This study also validates use of the short forms of the MacArthur CDI as obtaining comparable results with the long forms. Implications for speech language pathologists and young early childhood educators are given.

No description available.

No description available.

Vocal efficiency is a measure of the efficiency of the energy conversion process from aerodynamic power to acoustic power. Few studies have been conducted to measure vocal efficiency in trained singers to determine whether "vocal athletes" are more efficient than non-singers. Data were collected from 20 trained singers (10 male and 10 female) and 20 non-singers (10 male and 10 female) to determine if there were any significant differences between the two groups. During the recording, each participant produced a series of syllables at combinations of three different levels of pitch and loudness. The acoustic and aerodynamic data were analyzed to reveal any statistically significant differences in vocal efficiency between singers and non-singers. The singers were significantly more efficient than non-singers in only two of the nine conditions. Singers had significantly higher subglottic pressure and resistance values. More differences were found between men and women, in that males produced greater flow, but females consistently produced higher sound pressure level values. Acoustic analyses were also performed and this revealed that singers had significantly greater fundamental frequency variability during speech, as reflected in a higher semitone standard deviation for a reading passage. It was also found that males had higher maximum phonation times and a greater long-term average spectrum standard deviation. Vocal beauty ratings were significantly higher for singers than non-singers.

The purpose of this study was to develop, digitally record, evaluate, and psychometrically equate a set of Thai monosyllabic word lists to use in the measurement of word recognition ability. A native male and female talker from Thailand, who were judged to have a standard Thai dialect, participated as talkers in digitally recording familiar Thai monosyllabic words. Twenty native Thai participants were used as subjects to determine the percentage of correct word recognition for each word at 10 intensity levels ranging from --5 to 40 dB HL in 5 dB increments. The 200 words with the highest raw scores were included in the final word lists. Four lists of 50 words each were created and eight half-lists (25 words each) were created from the four lists. A chi-square analysis was performed, revealing no statistical differences among the lists and half-lists. The monosyllabic word data were analyzed using logistic regression to calculate threshold and slope for each list and half-list.