The current study examined the effects of bite blocks on articulatory kinematics when producing /r/ within a phrase. Participants consisted of 20 young adults (10 males, 10 females) with no speech, language or hearing disorders. Participants produced the carrier phrase, I say __ with the nonsense words /əri/ (high front vowel), /əræ/ (low front vowel), /əru/ (high back vowel), /ərɑ/ (low back vowel). A Northern Digital Instruments Wave electromagnetic articulograph measured the articulatory movements while the speaker produced the stimuli in two conditions (Pre bite block and post bite block). Bilateral bite blocks were made using Express dental putty, which is a silicone impression material, in order to create an inter-incisal gap of 10 mm. The hull area (i.e., a boundary enclosing the total distance the sensor traveled during the target phrase) of the data for each sensor (i.e., tongue back, tongue mid, tongue front, lower lip, mandibular central incisor) was calculated for the individual nonsense words /eɪərɑ/, /eɪəræ/, /eɪəri/, and /eɪəru/. Results revealed kinematic differences across vowel phrases and between genders. The hull area of the tongue and jaw were significantly different for the vowel phrases /eɪəræ/, /eɪəri/, and /eɪəru/ compared to /eɪərɑ/. The hull area for the jaw for /eɪərɑ/ was significantly larger than the other vowel phrases. The between-gender analyses showed larger hull areas for males than females. Different motor equivalent strategies for tongue movements were observed when speakers produced /eɪərɑ/ and there were individual differences in compensating for the presence of the bite block

The Computerized Profiling (CP) software extracts several quantitative measures from a transcribed sample of a client's language. These analyses include the Mean Length of Utterance in Words (MLU-W) and in Morphemes (MLU-M), the Mean Syntactic Length (MSL), the Syntactic Complexity Score (SCS), Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS), the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn), and the Picture-Elicited Screening Procedure for LARSP (PSL). The validity of these measures was examined by comparing them to the number of finite nominal, adverbial, and relative clauses contained in samples from 54 first-, 48 third-, and 48 fifth-grade students and 24 young adults. The DSS and SCS correlated highly with the frequency of complex constructions; MLU-W, MLU-M, and MSL correlated moderately; and IPSyn and PSL correlated minimally at best.

Masking Level Difference (MLD) tests are an established component of auditory processing test batteries; however, normative data for these tests vary according to procedure. In this study, forty normal, native-English speaking adults between the ages of 18 and 26 were tested for MLD via a newly developed computer software program using both an adaptive procedure (MLDA) and a Bekesy procedure (MLDB). The results from the two procedures were analyzed for sex differences and compared with each other. For both the MLDA and MLDB, the results showed statistically significant sex differences in the masked thresholds used to obtain the MLD (NoSo and NoSπ), but no significant difference in the calculated MLD value (NoSo - NoSπ). These results suggest that since the MLD was similar for both sexes, the normative data need not be reported separately by sex. The results also showed statistically significant differences between procedures, with the MLDA procedure producing higher MLDs than the MLDB procedure. The MLDA procedure lent itself to a d´ analysis, which could not be determined using MLDB due to the nature of a Bekesy assessment. For MLDA, d´ = 1.4, test sensitivity = 96.4%, and test specificity = 60.3%. The results of this study indicate that MLDA is a better testing procedure due to MLDA's higher MLD average and the statistical data available (d´, and measures of sensitivity and specificity) when using the MLDA procedure.

For many years, speech recognition threshold (SRT) testing has been used as an indicator of audiologic health. However, with changing methods and technology, test-retest reliability has not been reviewed extensively with newer digitally recorded spondaic words which meet a published criterion of listener familiarity. This study examined the test-retest reliability of 33 high frequency usage and psychometrically equated spondaic words. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association recommended method (2-dB decrements) was used to measure the left and right SRT of 40 participants using both male and female talker recordings. For each participant, four SRTs were found during the test condition and four SRTs were found during the retest condition. All of the SRT scores were analyzed and the averaged SRT values found using a male talker recording resulted in an average retest SRT to be 1.4 dB better than the average test SRT. The averaged SRT values found using a female talker recording resulted in an averaged retest SRT to be 1.2 dB better than the averaged test SRT. The SRT scores also showed high validity when compared to each participant's pure tone average (PTA). This study additionally found no significant interaction in using a male versus a female talker when using digitally recorded and psychometrically equated spondaic words.

Current methods of selection of amplification are not readily applicable to children, and relatively few alternatives have been explored. Consequently, the audiologist must make a number of rather arbitrary judgements with little concrete information to support his recommendation of a given instrument. He has limited means of clinically determining the sustainability of the instrument for the child. This study was designed to explore the relationship between several factors which may add to the existing body of data related to the problems of amplification in children. In brief, the problem was to determine the various electrical and acoustical characteristics of hearing aids worn by children under study. A comparison of this information with hearing loss data would be studied to aid in understanding what relationships (if any) exist between the two measures. If in fact there is a relationship between the factors of hearing loss and hearing aid characteristics, this information may provide a more comprehensive and precise means of examining a given hearing aid in view of the hearing loss specific to each child. While this information may be preliminary in nature, it has application in the development of ongoing programs of evaluation and maintenance of hearing aids. A brief comparison of the present performance of the instrument with both the original performance levels and the child’s current needs would appear to be an integral part of such a program.

The current study examined the effect of different rate change approaches on speech movement patterns, including increasing and decreasing speaking rate volitionally, as well as with delayed auditory feedback (DAF). There were 10 participants, five male and five female, with a mean age of 25 years. All were typical speakers. Participants spoke the sentence “Don’t fight or pout over a toy car” under slow, fast and DAF speaking conditions. A total of 5 sensors were glued to each participant’s tongue, teeth, and lips. NDI Wave electromagnetic articulography recorded the articulatory movements from these sensors as the participants spoke. Metrics for the individual movement strokes, or articulatory gestures, were calculated based on the movement speed of the articulators during the target utterance. Ten tokens of the target utterance were analyzed for stroke count, stroke speed, duration, and hull area. Vertical movements of the tongue, jaw, lips, and lip aperture were used to calculate the spatiotemporal index to assess variability in speech movements across 10 sentence repetitions. Statistical analysis revealed that articulatory patterns changed significantly in slower speech. A speaker’s efforts to naturally decrease speech rate affected articulation patterns more than did the fast and DAF conditions. Findings from this study can be used as a foundation for future studies with dysarthric individuals, which may increase our understanding of mechanisms of change in the remediation of disordered speech.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased uncertainty and anxiety for most and was especially disruptive to autistic people and their families. Autistic children were particularly vulnerable due to their intolerance for increased uncertainty and disruption to their school and therapy support. This study aimed to investigate the effect that increased uncertainty had on autistic children, specifically their sensory behaviors and stress levels and on the stress levels of their primary caregivers. Parents and guardians of 47 autistic children completed an online survey consisting of questions investigating background and demographic information, their experiences during the first six months of the pandemic, information about the types of support that they were provided, and measures of intolerance of uncertainty (IUS-12) and sensory processing (SSP). Additionally, 10 primary caregivers participated in semi-structured interviews to explore in-depth accounts of their experiences and those of their children during the pandemic. Eighty nine percent of caregivers reported their children had significant sensory difficulties prior to the pandemic. We found that this majority group showed significant increases in sensory processing and intolerance of uncertainty from pre to during the first six months of the pandemic. Changes from pre to during the first six months of the pandemic were significantly correlated suggesting that as uncertainty increased, sensory processing ability decreased. Disruption to routines was significantly correlated with sensory processing and explained a significant portion of the variance in child, household, and parent stress. The themes found in interview responses including the relationship between sensory processing and uncertainty, living in "survival mode,"and unmasking reflect the quantitative findings, showing that the uncertainty introduced by disrupted routines increased sensory processing difficulty and typically autistic behaviors. These findings have implications for helping us to understand the relationship between uncertainty, sensory processing, and stress leading to better interventions and supports for this population. Additionally, primary caregivers noted the need for increased education and training for parents during therapy sessions and for a stronger community of primary caregivers to support the unique needs of these individuals and families.

State standards require kindergarten students to produce expository writing, but little research has been done regarding their abilities in this area. This study describes expository writing samples of 47 typically developing (TD) kindergarteners and 43 kindergarteners with developmental language disorder (DLD). The Expository Language Measures (ELM) Flow Chart and the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software were used to detail the language complexity and text structure features the children in the sample produced. When comparing TD and DLD children's expository written samples, no significant differences in the language and text structure measures were found. It is important to continue acquiring data regarding young children's abilities to produce expository written language. Identifying norms and areas of weakness promotes the creation of more specific and effective teaching and intervention methods.

As the population of Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States steadily grows, the importance of accurately assessing and diagnosing developmental language disorder (DLD) has also grown. Understanding a child's underlying language learning system is critical in this process. Several studies have demonstrated the efficacy of nonword repetition (NWR) tasks in bilingual children across a wide range of development, however there is little information regarding guidelines for interpretation of NWR performance or analyzing error patterns. This study was conducted to address these gaps in the research. A sample of 26 Spanish-English bilingual school aged children (6;0-9;4) were administered English and Spanish NWR, recalling sentences, and narrative tasks. Total errors, as well as errors of omission and substitution were examined across tasks, languages, and language group (typically developing-TD and developmental language disorder- DLD). Descriptive statistics revealed that DLD children made a higher number of errors across language tasks in Spanish and English than their TD peers. Group membership predicted total errors in the Spanish NWR task while controlling for age and language proficiency. Language proficiency was not a significant predictor for any of the error types above and beyond group membership. Therefore, when age and language input/output were controlled for, language ability was best predictor of the number of errors. Additionally, results showed stronger correlations between Spanish across all three language tasks in TD children and in English across two language tasks in DLD children. According to the results of the current study, total errors is the only effective error measure of language ability. However, looking at error patterns across language and language group can be informative regarding bilingual children's language learning systems. Future research should be conducted to repeat the study with a larger sample size and investigate the difference in error patterns between languages in TD and DLD children.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the preliminary validity of a newly developed dynamic assessment of narrative language in Mandarin Chinese. Two studies are reported in this thesis. Study 1 included 31 second grade participants and Study 2 included 43 first grade participants. All participants were enrolled in a Chinese immersion program in an elementary school in Utah. A dynamic assessment of narrative language was administered to each participant in Mandarin Chinese. A teacher rating was also included in Study 1. Results indicated that the dynamic assessment investigated in this thesis demonstrated some similar characteristics with other valid dynamic assessments of narrative language. As hypothesized, participants in Study 1 made gains from pretest to posttest after the teaching phase. Gain score from pretest to posttest and static teacher rating did not significantly correlate with modifiability rating. Modifiability rating and posttest score were significantly correlated in both studies. There is also no significant group difference between the participants in Study 1 and Study 2 on modifiability rating. These results are promising. However, more research will need to be conducted to further examine the dynamic assessment due to the limitations of the current studies.