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The current study examined two methods of language sampling (interview and the Dixit Method) in early adolescents with typical language development. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the two procedures in eliciting lexical diversity in spoken language samples in the early adolescent population. To examine lexical diversity, traditional methods of analysis (type token ratio, average type token ratio, and mean length of utterance) were applied. However, because literature historically alludes to flaws in these traditional methods, the researchers also applied an ecological approach to analysis of lexical diversity proposed by Scott Jarvis (2013). Student participants (n = 22) in the sixth grade (11:0 -12:11 years of age) were recruited through a local middle school. Both methods of language sampling were compared in a within-subject design for diversity of spoken language samples by applying the previously mentioned analysis procedures. The data was evaluated using a pairedsamples two-tailed t test. Although the sample size was small, evidence from this study indicates the Dixit Method provides a more holistic view of lexical diversity than the traditional method by considering six ecological components that are reflected in typical language use.

Individuals in certified nursing facilities (CNF) often experience social isolation and have limited opportunities to exercise. Bingocize®, an evidence-based healthpromotion program, is a combination of exercise and Bingo and provides opportunities for CNF resident interaction. Limited tools are available to quantify social engagement displayed by nursing home residents. Research suggests that intergenerational programming can positively affect social engagement. The present pilot study focused on the implementation of the Fun and Social Engagement (FUSE) evaluation to measure social engagement displayed by nursing home residents during Bingocize® sessions. The FUSE combined observation and self-report measures to yield a total social engagement score. Social engagement data were collected during Bingocize® sessions with university students interacting with residents and without student presence. Participants (M age = 82) included 35 residents from certified nursing facilities in Kentucky that receive funding from the Civil Money Penalty grant by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The purpose of this study was to determine if participants display increased positive social engagement during Bingocize® sessions when students are present versus when they are not, as well as if there is a difference between the participants’ self-report measure of engagement versus the observational report. Data were collected across four Bingocize® sessions, two with intergenerational programming and two without. Paired t-tests were conducted to determine overall participant engagement scores with and without student presence. Because of absenteeism, only two of the comparisons had a sufficient number of participants to analyze the effect of student presence. Comparing scores of the same residents, FUSE scores were higher in sessions with students present versus when students were not (p < .05). A two-sample t-test revealed that residents who reported happiness had higher observational scores than those who reported they were not happy. The results of this pilot study are tentative due to limited number of participants at some of the sessions. Future studies are needed to determine reliability of the FUSE. Nevertheless, this study suggests that the FUSE is a feasible tool for measuring fun and social engagement during Bingocize® and that university students have a positive effect on resident social engagement.

Word recognition is based on the complex interplay of bottom up processing of acoustic input and corresponding top-down processing based on linguistic redundancies (i.e., contextual cues). Friedrich and Kotz (2007) investigated the timeline of integrating top-down and bottom-up processes among young adults with normal hearing using sentences presented in quiet. As a follow-up study, also with young adults with normal hearing (Experiment 1 of this dissertation), we used sentences embedded in multi-talker background noise and found similar results to Friedrich and Kotz (2007); but, with the use of principal component analysis (PCA) unveiled additional effects of phonological and semantic integration of spoken sentences presented in background noise. These past studies provide evidence of the time course of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms among young adult listeners in quiet and in noise; however, it is unknown if a similar pattern would be present among older adult listeners, which was the primary goal of the dissertation. In Experiment 2, we aimed to elucidate the time-course, and behavioral and neural correlates of word recognition primed by speech-in-noise in older adults with near normal hearing (i.e., thresholds ≤ 25 dB-HL through 3000 Hz and minimal high frequency hearing loss). Older adults often report difficulty understanding speech in the presence of background noise. Degradation in peripheral and central auditory processing along with age-related cognitive decline has been hypothesized as reasons why older adults struggle in the presence of noise.

Purpose: Response Elaboration Training (RET) is a treatment program for increasing the amount of information contained in the speech of individuals with aphasia. This study employed a sentence production task (SPT) to examine whether RET will (1) generalize to a task not worked on in treatment and (2) affect syntactic performance. Methods and Procedures: Three adults with chronic non-fluent Broca’s aphasia received RET in this prospective, repeated case study. The dependent variable was a SPT requiring the participant to put a verb in a sentence. Changes in the syntactic performance of the participant’s sentence productions were classified across three parameters: (1) syntactic structure, (2) grammatical completeness, and (3) semantic appropriateness. Results: Findings of this study indicate that RET improves the syntactic performance of individuals with chronic Broca’s aphasia and generalizes to a task not worked on in treatment. Participant responses to the SPT showed increased complexity in syntactic structures, improved grammaticality, and improved topic relevancy. In addition, qualitative improvements were seen in 5 randomly selected verbs for each participant. These improvements included increased length of sentences and fewer false starts, interjections, and disfluencies. Finally, improvements on the Western Aphasia Battery and two picture description tasks were evinced for two participants.

The discourse of older healthy adults is commonly described as lengthy and off-topic and thought to be associated with a general cognitive decline that occurs in healthy aging. This study investigated the overall decline in attention associated with healthy aging and its relationship to instances of off-topic speech (OTS) in a constrained and unconstrained language production task. Ninety cognitively healthy adults participated and comprised three age cohorts (40 – 75+). Participants completed cognitive measures of attention and two discourse tasks that included recounting personal events and describing a procedure. Older adults exhibited poorer scores on measures of selective and shifting attention, and elderly adults produced more OTS as compared to middle-aged (40s) and older (60s) adults in the unconstrained task only. Poorer scores of shifting attention were significantly correlated with more OTS in the older adults (60s) only. Overall, a marked increase in variability of language production was observed with advancing age. Results indicated the need for further research on the relationships between age, attention, OTS, and task type in healthy aging to determine an underlying cause for increasing variability of language production with age.

Children with autism spectrum disorders typically experience language deficits in multiple areas, including form, content, and use. These children often receive speech therapy with individual sessions (one child and clinician), group sessions (several children), or a combination of both. Although research has deemed individual therapy successful, there is still debate regarding the success of group therapy, and there is virtually no literature examining a comparison between individual and group therapy. The current case-study investigated the relative effectiveness of individual versus group therapy for one six-year-old female with moderate autism spectrum disorder. The child underwent ten alternating therapy sessions of similar structure with consistent language targets during one academic semester. All sessions were transcribed using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) conventions, and analyzed via the SALT program and Microsoft Excel t-tests. Results indicate that individual sessions yielded larger improvement with syntax and semantics, while group sessions produced greater progress with pragmatics and social skills, suggesting that a combination of both therapy types may be most beneficial. Social validation of group therapy also signified high parent satisfaction with overall growth during the semester. Implications of this study, as well as recommendations for future research and clinical practice are discussed.

As alterações comunicativas têm sido descritas em muitas pesquisas como sendo uma das primeiras preocupações dos pais de crianças do espectro do autismo, além de serem consideradas parâmetro de diagnóstico e indicações de intervenções terapêuticas. O objetivo deste estudo foi, a partir da percepção dos pais e/ou cuidadores, buscar compreender as variáveis relevantes quanto às dificuldades comunicativas percebidas por eles. Considera-se que a interpretação e a atitude dos pais frente aos comportamentos, não somente das crianças, mas também das outras pessoas, tenha influência no processo comunicativo da díade. O questionário envolve aspectos fundamentais para o relacionamento interpessoal, tanto no âmbito comunicativo quanto social. Ele é dividido em 24 questões fechadas que abrangem quatro domínios (impressão dos pais sobre si mesmos, em relação às outras pessoas, em relação a seus filhos e atitudes dos pais em relação a seus filhos) e uma questão aberta. Neste estudo o questionário foi aplicado a um grande grupo de pais e/ou cuidadores em diferentes regiões do Brasil e as variáveis sociodemográficas consideradas foram idade da criança, posição entre outros irmãos; idade e nível de escolaridade dos cuidadores. Os resultados foram estatisticamente analisados e indicaram que, de uma forma geral, os dados sociodemográficos não apresentaram relação significativa com as respostas obtidas no questionário. Em relação aos domínios, a impressão dos pais a respeito das reações das outras pessoas às manifestações de seus filhos originou a maior parte das dificuldades relatadas. Três questões específicas destacaram-se como aquelas em que houve um volume significativo de concordâncias: elas dizem respeito à dificuldade de comunicação das outras pessoas com a criança, hábitos de comunicação da díade e preocupação com o futuro e a falta de informações a respeito do tema. O tratamento dos dados possibilitou identificar as dificuldades recorrentes apontadas pelos cuidadores. Caberá ao fonoaudiólogo usar essas informações e, ao mesmo tempo, valorizar o há de individual e peculiar a cada família nos processos de orientação. / Communication disorders have been described in several studies as one of the first worries of autism spectrum children\'s parents and also as a diagnostic and therapeutic intervention parameter. The aim of this study was to, based on the perception of parents and caregivers, understand the relevant variables of the communication difficulties they undergo. It is considered that their interpretation and attitudes towards the child\'s behavior and also towards other people\'s behavior influences the communication processes. The questionnaire that was used involves fundamental aspects of the interpersonal relationship in the communicative as well as in the social domain. It has 24 multiple choice questions about four domains (parents\' impressions about themselves, about other people and about their children and parent\'s attitudes about their children) and one open question. In this study the questionnaire was applied to a great number of parents and caregivers from different regions of Brazil and the social-demographic variables considered were child\'s age and position among peers; parents\' or caregivers\' age and educational level. The results were statistically analyzed and show that generally the social demographic data are not related to the presented answers. In what refer to the domains, the parents/caregivers impressions about other people\'s reactions to their children\'s behavior produced most of the reported difficulties. Three specific questions are highlighted as the ones with the largest agreement rates: they refer to the difficulties to communicate with other people, the dyad\'s communication habits and worries about the future and lack of information about the issue. The data analysis allowed the identification of recurrent difficulties pointed out by parents/caregivers. The speech-language pathologist should use this information and, at the same time consider aspects that are individual and peculiar to each dyad during the orientation processes.

This study sought to determine if time spent engaging in online gaming, interpersonal communication skills, and introvert personality traits are predictors of an individual’s likelihood of experiencing symptoms of social anxiety. A sample of 128 participants (82 males and 46 females) completed measures of demographics, interpersonal communication skills, problematic online gaming, social anxiety, and introversion. Participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. There were significant correlations among social anxiety and interpersonal communication skills, problematic online gaming, and introversion. There was no significant correlation among social anxiety and time spent playing Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), a specific form of online video game. It was also found that interpersonal communication skills, problematic online gaming, and introversion were all significant predictors of social anxiety. However, time spent playing MMORPGs was not a significant predictor of social anxiety.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the factors that constitute a positive and negative supervisor-supervisee relationship as perceived by speech-language pathology graduate students. Clinical practicum experiences were analyzed using qualitative methods via recorded in-depth participant interviews. After the data were collected and transcribed, the narratives were analyzed to draw useful inferences and discover underlying themes using a phenomenological methodology approach. Two overlaying themes, ASHA’s Task 1 of Supervision and Anderson’s Continuum Model of Supervision, were identified from the participants’ interviews and were used to categorize the data. Results indicate the most likely factors attributed to a positive clinical experience included constructive feedback, respect, positive praise, clear expectations and structured clinical guidance while the factors that were most likely attributed to a negative experience were lack of constructive feedback, lack of perceived respect, negative criticism, unclear expectations, and minimal clinical guidance.