The main purpose of this research was to develop a screening test for speech discrimination ability. Twenty-five of the most difficult CID W-22 words were chosen for the material. These words were presented live voice without a carrier phrase, recorded with a carrier phrase, and recorded without a carrier phrase. These scores were then compared to the CID 4-22 score, Two groups of twenty subjects were tested: one group of normal hearing young adults and one group of subjects with sensors-neural hearing losses.All three experimental versions of the screening test yield a valid indication of the listener's speech discrimination ability. Any listener scoring 80% or better on the screening test has essentially normal discrimination ability.

There is no abstract available for this thesis.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relation among speech-language dissociations, one attentional processspecifically, distractibilityand childhood stuttering. Participants included 202 monolingual, English speaking preschool-age children (3;05;11 years of age) who do (82 CWS; 65 males) and do not stutter (120 CWNS; 59 males). Speech-language dissociations were identified using a correlation-based statistical procedure (Bates, E., Appelbaum, Salcedo, Saygin, & Pizzamiglio, 2003), which was applied to participants scores on five standardized speech-language (sub)tests. Distractibility was measured by the distractibility subscale of the Behavioral Style Questionnaire (BSQ; McDevitt & Carey, 1978). Between-group analyses were conducted to determine whether: (1) more CWS exhibited speech-language dissociations than CWNS; and (2) CWS exhibited poorer distractibility scores than CWNS. Within-group correlations assessed the relation between CWSs and CWNSs distractibility and speech-language dissociations. Generalized linear modeling (GLM) assessed whether interactions between distractibility and speech-language dissociations predict childrens frequency of stuttered, nonstuttered, and/or total disfluencies. Findings indicated that more preschool-age CWS exhibited speech-language dissociations than CWNS, and that more boys exhibited dissociations than girls. Additionally, CWS boys scored lower on the BSQs distractibility subscalesuggesting less distractibilitythan CWS and CWNS girls. Furthermore, CWSs, but not CWNSs, distractibility scores were associated with two out of four measures of speech-language dissociations. That is, for preschool-age CWS, greater attention (i.e., being less distractible) was associated with greater frequencies of dissociations. Lastly, findings showed that interactions between distractibility and frequency of speech-language dissociations were not predictive of childrens speech fluency breakdowns (i.e., stuttered, nonstuttered, and total disfluencies). In conclusion, more preschool-age CWSparticularly boysexhibit speech-language dissociations than their normally fluent peers, and, for CWS, there is a relation between greater attention (i.e., more non-distractibility) and speech-language dissociations. The latter finding appears to suggest that attentional processes are associated with speech-language dissociations exhibited by preschool-age CWS. However, precise understanding of this association must await future empirical study.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to empirically assess whether preschool-age CWSs emotional diathesis (vulnerability), emotional stress, and their interaction are associated with these childrens stuttered disfluencies and whether those associations are mediated by sympathetic arousal (the latter indexed by tonic skin conductance level, SCL). Method: Participants were 49 preschool-age CWS (38 male). Each participant was exposed to relatively neutral (i.e., baseline), positive and negative emotion-inducing child-appropriate video clips and then performed age-appropriate narrative tasks. Measurement of participants emotional diatheses (e.g., emotional reactivity) was based on parents report (i.e., Childrens Behavior Questionnaires, CBQ), with their percentage of stuttered disfluencies and sympathetic arousal (i.e., SCL) measured during a narrative after viewing each baseline, positive and negative video clip. Results: Among the salient findings, the first finding indicated that preschool-age CWSs positive emotional reactivity was significantly positively associated with their percentage of stuttered disfluencies regardless of emotion stress condition. The second finding indicated that preschool-age CWSs negative emotional reactivity was more positively correlated with their percentage of stuttered disfluencies during narratives after positive, compared to baseline, emotion stress condition. The third finding indicated that preschool-age CWSs mean length of utterances (MLU) was positively associated with their positive emotional reactivity as well as percentage of stuttered disfluencies. Conclusions: Findings addressed whether, when and how the association of emotional processes and stuttering exists for preschool-age CWS. Regarding whether the relation exists, the first finding suggests that such an association exists, at least for positive emotional reactivity. Relative to when the relation exists, the second finding suggests that preschool-age CWSs negative emotional reactivity is more associated with their percentage of stuttered disfluencies under positive, compared to baseline, emotional stress. In terms of how emotional processes impacts childhood stuttering, the third finding was cautiously taken to suggest that positive emotional reactivity is associated with stuttering through MLU, rather than sympathetic arousal. Overall, present findings appear to support the notion that emotional processes play a role and that emotion warrants inclusion in any truly comprehensive account of childhood stuttering.

The hypothesis was proposed that hard of hearing individuals are able to understand men's voices better than women's voices relative to the understanding of the same voices by normal hearers. Eighteen normal and eighteen hard of hearing subjects participated in a study designed to demonstrate the relationship between sex and intelligibility of speaker for hard of hearing persons compared to normal hearing individuals. Discrimination scores were obtained with both a male and a female speaker under both quiet and noisy listening conditions. Analysis of variance techniques revealed that no significant difference in discrimination scores occurred due to sex of speaker when the hard of hearing subjects were compared with the normal hearers. Further examination of the data indicated that neither extent nor configuration of hearing loss influenced the relative intelligibility of male and female voices for hard of hearing persons. No evidence was found to support the hypothesis.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of English

Freedom of expression is one of the most important rights protected under the Constitution. It is as a pre-condition of the enjoyment of all other rights (except, may be the right to life). The right of freedom of expression is the mouthpiece of all other rights, without which all other rights are as good as dead. Freedom of expression has been found to be of importance for several reasons:- the search for truth rationale; the political process rationale; individual self-fulfilment. Despite its resonance, freedom of expression is not absolute in South Africa. It is limited by other equally important fundamental rights contained in the Constitutional document, such as the right to equality, dignity and privacy. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa makes it clear that some forms of expression that have racial connotations are not worthy of Constitutional protection 'from the word go'. These types of expression have the potential to debase the foundations upon which our constitution is premised. They show total disregard to the values of human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights. / Thesis (LLM) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2004

Freedom of expression is one of the most important rights protected under the Constitution. It is as a pre-condition of the enjoyment of all other rights (except, may be the right to life). The right of freedom of expression is the mouthpiece of all other rights, without which all other rights are as good as dead. Freedom of expression has been found to be of importance for several reasons :- the search for truth rationale; the political process rationale; individual self-fulfilment. Despite its resonance, freedom of expression is not absolute in South Africa. It is limited by other equally important fundamental rights contained in the Constitutional document, such as the right to equality, dignity and privacy. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa makes it clear that some forms of expression that have racial connotations are not worthy of Constitutional protection 'from the word go'. These types of expression have the potential to debase the foundations upon which our constitution is premised. They show total disregard to the values of human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights. / (LLM) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2004

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to better understand problem behaviors in young children with hearing loss (HL) who use listening and spoken language. Method: Children with HL were compared to same-aged peers with language impairment (LI) and typical language (TL). Participants included 45 children and their parents (13 in the HL group and 16 in the LI and TL groups); the mean age was 43 months (SD 12.2). Results from the preschool version of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL/1.5-5) were compared across groups as well as language level. This study also compared the results of the parent-reported CBCL/1.5-5 to the teacher version, the Caregiver-Teacher Report Form (C-TRF) for children with HL to look for any inter-rater differences and differences across settings. Results: As a group, children with HL did not have significantly different internalizing or externalizing problem behavior composite scores on the CBCL/1.5-5 than children with LI or TL. Internalizing problem behavior scores were moderately associated with language level across all groups. Therefore, internalizing problem behaviors appear to be at least partially attributed to language across multiple populations of young children. It was also found that for children with HL, parent and teacher reported problem behavior scores were in concordance. Conclusion: In this sample of young children there were no significant group differences in internalizing or externalizing composite scores on the CBCL/1.5-5 between children with HL, LI, and TL. Internalizing problem behavior scores were moderately correlated with language level across all three groups, which is consistent with previous research. For children with HL, parent and teacher reported problem behavior scores were concordant.

Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) can present with deficits in receptive, expressive, or both modalities of vocabulary. Although typically developing children demonstrate vocabulary generalization from the receptive to expressive modality, the extent to which children with SLI can generalize between modalities has not yet been determined. Three male children with SLI (age 3;1 - 5;5) were taught separate sets of receptive and expressive vocabulary in a single subject multiple baseline multiple probe design. During each probe condition, vocabulary growth in both taught and untaught modalities was probed. Results demonstrated that all three children learned target vocabulary words in the taught modality. However, only the two oldest children (ages 5;4 and 5;5) demonstrated consistent cross-modal generalization from the expressive to receptive modality. Most generalization was maintained. The findings suggest that, in children with SLI, cross-modal generalization of vocabulary is most likely to occur from the expressive to the receptive modality.