This study aims to describe the communication environment in Grade R classes in a rural district setting in the Western Cape in terms of language-learning environment; language-learning opportunities and language-learning interactions in order to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. In addition to this, the study aims to explore the relationship between communication environments and school performance in a rural district in the Western Cape as well teacher and classroom variables. In order to do this, an observational tool, the Communication Supporting Classrooms Observational Tool, was used which allowed researchers to document what was happening in the classroom over the prescribed observation period (Dockrell, Bakopoulou, Law, & Spencer, 2010). Before this, the pilot phase of the study allowed researchers to train assistants to use the tool using video recordings as well as to ascertain the tool's applicability to South African classrooms with different languages of learning and teaching. A sample size of 60 classrooms was used in the main phase, consisting of 30 lower performing schools and 30 higher performing schools. The study included all regular learners and regular classroom teachers in the chosen Grade R classrooms in a rural/remote district. Overall, the outcomes of the pilot study were two-fold: (1) The researchers determined that the tool could be used reliably in classrooms where Afrikaans and isiXhosa were the language of instruction due to high inter-rater reliability measured by ICC; and (2) With sufficient training and practical examples, raters can be trained to use the tool effectively. In addition to these outcomes, the results of the pilot study allowed researchers to make useful choices for the main study. The study indicated that the tool was applicable in classrooms where Afrikaans and isiXhosa were the medium of instruction which allowed researchers to include these classrooms in the sample for the main study.

Outcomes are critical for informing evidence-based, shared decision-making about health supports for children. These outcomes should be important and meaningful to all interested parties, particularly to children and their families, and should be included within research and practice. The work in the present manuscript represents three studies that 1) investigated how service outcomes were being used in school-based, speech-language therapy 2) explored what service outcomes were meaningful and important according to interested parties, and 3) identified a set of core service outcomes using the aggregate input of the interested parties to guide future research and practice. In the first study, I analyzed interview transcripts from 24 senior, school-based speech-language therapists and clinical managers to explore how clinicians working in schools determined the impact of their services. I identified seven outcomes and common facilitators and barriers to the meaningful use of outcomes to determine service impact through this qualitative analysis. In the second study, I interviewed 14 school-based speech-language therapists, teachers, and family members of children receiving supports. I asked participants to speak to the outcomes or impacts of these services they thought were most important or valuable. I identified six outcomes using both qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques. In the third study, I combined the perspectives of these three groups of interested parties into a single set of core outcomes for school-based, speech-language services. The result is a suggested set of impacts to include in research and practice. Including these core outcomes in research will improve the relevance of clinic-external evidence (research studies), providing more pertinent information to shared decision making about speech-language supports in schools. Their inclusion in clinical practice with strengthen clinic-internal evidence (data about specific programs or services) about the appropriateness of supports in context, and will assist the development of local, contextualized evidence for speech-language services. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / School-based speech-language services provide important social and academic supports to children throughout their school years. To better understand if these services are achieving meaningful results for children and families, we wanted to know what people think is a meaningful result. In our first study, we asked speech-language therapists working in schools how they knew they were achieving meaningful results from their work. In our second study, we discussed what results were most important with family members, teachers, and speech-language therapists. Finally, in our third study, we combined all perspectives into a single list of most important service results to guide future research and quality improvement work. Together, these three studies provide important information on what results we want to achieve, which include important results for students, teachers and families, and the school system. The most important result was providing a holistic approach to support children, their families, and school communities.

A non-speech response mode similar to the one used by Prepack (1971) to teach language to a chimpanzee was utilized to teach two simple language functions to three autistic children. The response mode consisted of picking up a geometric symbol and placing it on a response tray. The geometric symbol was the basic unit in this language system. The symbols were used to represent objects in the environment and relationships between the objects.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The purpose of this study will be to compare the language and non-language abilities of speech detectives and normal speakers on tbe California Mental Maturity Teat and the Iowa Basic Skills Test.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether individuals with right hemisphere damage (RHD) process impliciture sentences differently from matched controls. The research questions were: (a) Are participants with RHD less accurate than healthy controls in impliciture sentence processing? (b) Does the introduction of story context affect impliciture processing in participants with RHD? (c) Do participants with RHD demonstrate response time profiles that differ from controls?Method: Seven participants with RHD and 16 matched controls participated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants listened to 144 impliciture sentences, and verbally responded with the interpretation they thought best fit what the sentence meant. In Experiment 2, participants listened to 100 stories and verbally responded with their interpretation of what the final impliciture sentence meant. There were two story types for each sentence: one that facilitated the normally preferred interpretation, and one that negated that interpretation.Results: For Experiment 1, three participants were less accurate in impliciture comprehension when compared to controls. The results were significant for lexical, possessive, quantitative, and temporal implicitures. For Experiment 2, three participants demonstrated increased accuracy with context. The results were significant for hyperbole, possessive, quantitative, and temporal implicitures. However, item analysis showed that each participant with RHD had difficulty negating the preferred interpretation of the impliciture. For the response time analysis, the control group was significantly slower in the negating compared to the facilitating context condition (F<N>profile). In contrast, participants with RHD did not demonstrate a difference (F=N profile).Conclusions: These findings suggest that reduced accuracy in impliciture processing occurs in some individuals with RHD, although additional research is needed to determine what characteristics are related to poor impliciture comprehension. Participants also were unable to use story contexts as effectively as the control group, showing difficulty negating the normally-preferred interpretation. Because response time profiles differed between participants with RHD and the control group, it is likely that the integrity of the right hemisphere is required for normal processing of impliciture and use of contextual cues. The results suggest a number of additional avenues of research in both the normally aging and RHD populations.

This research was guided by a theoretical framework positing that children with typical language apply general cognitive resources, such as attention, to facilitate language acquisition, and limitations in these processes may contribute to poor language skills. From this perspective, studying the attentional functioning of children who exhibit difficulty with language would have value for both informing this theory and understanding the nature of the disorder. However, research on the attention of children with specific language impairment (SLI) is limited, as only a few subdomains have been addressed to date. In addition, although school-age children with SLI have been studied, the assessment of attentional functioning in preschool children with this disorder has been minimal. This is likely the result the limitations inherent to the methods used for evaluating attentional skills at younger ages. The purpose of this research was to extend a method previously used successfully with preschool children to study selected aspects of attentional control including susceptibility to distraction, inhibitory control, and updating skills. The research questions were: (a) Do children with SLI exhibit increased susceptibility to distraction relative to their typically-developing peers, and if so, does it vary according to the type of distracter (visual, nonverbal-auditory, linguistic) presented? (b) Do children with SLI exhibit poor inhibitory control relative to their typically-developing peers? (c) Do children with SLI and their typically-developing peers display evidence of updating? Thirty-one preschool children with SLI and 31 controls participated in two computer tasks designed to assess these mechanisms of attentional control. The susceptibility to distraction task involved resisting distracters presented in different stimulus modalities (visual and auditory-linguistic/nonlinguistic). Inhibition and updating skills were assessed using a stop signal paradigm. In comparison to typically-developing children, the children with SLI exhibited increased susceptibility to distraction and poor inhibitory control. Unlike the controls, they exhibited no evidence of updating. The results of this investigation will contribute to a long-term goal of addressing how attention may affect language acquisition in children with SLI. In addition, the successful methodology employed in this study may offer an improved procedure for diagnosing attentional difficulties at an early age, regardless of language status.

Central auditory processing performance of male and female stutterers and nonstutterers was compared on a battery of central auditory tests. Thirty stutterers (15 male and 15 female) with a mean age of 23.10 years (17.2-31 years) comprised the experimental group, and 30 nonstutterers (15 male and 15 female) with a mean age of 22.2 years(17-32 years) comprised the control group. The test battery included dichotic (DCV test, ssw test, eST) and monotic (SSI-ICM test, ARLT) tests. Stutterers performed significantly poorer than nonstutterers on various parameters of individual tests. The stutterers' performance on the test battery was varied : 8(26.6%) stutterers passed all tests in the battery; 7(23.3%) failed dichotic tests only; 15(50%) failed dichotic and monotic tests of which 2(6.6%) failed monotic tests. Pass/fail rates indicated that although 15 (50%) nonstutterers failed the battery 22(73.2%) stutterers failed. This result confirmed that stutterers performed significantly differently from nonstutterers on the test battery( X?= 19.87 , df=l; p<0.05). Male/famale comparisons for nonstutterers indicated no significant differences (p>0.05) on individual tests except on the ARLT where males obtained longer latencies than females. Pass /fail rates on the test battery confirmed no statistically significant (X~= 0.133 , df=l; p> 0.05) performance differences between male and female nonstutterers. For stutterers, although male performance was poorer than female performance on various parameters of individual tests ,the performance differences were not significant (p>0.05). However, pass/fail performance on the test battery indicated that significantly more males (13) than females (9) failed the test battery ( X2 = 8.66 df=l, p<0.05). The results are discussed in terms of the literature and theoretical and clinical implications are presented and discussed. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1992.

Purpose: The overall objective of the present study was to conduct a series of investigations to examine the need for, and use of speech pathology services by school-aged children in Tasmania. Specifically, investigations aimed to: a) report the prevalence of speech and/or language impairment amongst the preparatory student population enrolled in 2005 in the Northern Branch of the Department of Education Tasmania; b) determine the extent to which speech pathology services were used by this preparatory student population during their prior kindergarten year (2004); c) quantify the presence and degree of any unmet speech pathology service need within this specific student population; d) examine the nature and accuracy of teacher identification of speech and language impairment amongst the student population during their prior kindergarten year using current mandatory educational assessment (Kindergarten Development Check [KDC]); and e) explore teacher referral patternsfor students identified as having speech and/or language impairment on mandatory educational assessment, to speech pathology services. Methods: To address the aims of the present study, three individual data sets were used. The first data set was obtained through direct assessment of the speech and language skills of a cohort (N = 308) of preparatory students by a speech-language pathologist in 2005. This data was used to determine the prevalence of speech and/or language impairment. The second data set was information pertaining to the number of enrolled preparatory students who had accessed speech pathology services in their prior kindergarten year (2004), sourced from the speech pathology database of the Northern Branch of the Department of Education Tasmania. Comparison of data from the direct assessment of students by the speech-language pathologist and information from the speech pathology database enabled a determination of the presence and degree of any unmet speech pathology service need within this specific student population. The third and final data set was the results of the KDC, conducted by teachers on all students in their kindergarten year (2004). This data was obtained following a search within the electronic KDC database. Subsequent comparison between the student results from this KDC database and the direct assessment by the speech-language pathologist determined the accuracy of teacher identification of speech and/or language impairment using this specific tool. Further comparison of the student results from the KDC database, direct assessment and the speech pathology database also yielded information on teacher referral patterns for students identified as either speech or language-impaired on the KDC, together with the overall percentage of confirmed speech or language-impaired students referred to speech pathology services.Results: The overall prevalence of speech and/or language impairment was found to be 41.2% within the population studied. Specifically, 8.7% of students were found to have isolated speech impairment, 18.2% had isolated language impairment, and 14.3% were diagnosed with comorbid speech and language impairment. Despite the high overall prevalence of speech and/or language impairment, only 18.4% of the total enrolled preparatory student population was found to have accessed speech pathology services during their kindergarten year. It was therefore estimated that 36.1% of speech-impaired and 75.8% of language-impaired preparatory students respectively did not access speech pathology services during their first year at school. Comparison of student data from educational and speech pathology testing observed that the current teacher-administered kindergarten assessment (KDC) was ineffective in facilitating student access to speech pathology services where needed. The sensitivity of teacher identification of speech and language impairment on the KDC was only 50% and 15% respectively, indicating that 50% of all students confirmed as having speech impairment and 85% of students confirmed as having language impairment on speech pathology testing failed to be identified by teaching professionals on this specific tool. Further consideration of teacher referral patterns found that only 57.1% of students identified by teachers as having some type of communication impairment on the KDC were subsequently referred to speech pathology services. Of those students referred, only just over half (51.4%) were confirmed by speech pathology assessment as being either speech or languageimpaired, with the remainder found to have typical speech and language skills. When the total speech and language-impaired population was examined, the percentage of children appropriately referred by teachers was therefore only 25.3%.Conclusions: The present study illustrated that speech and language impairment are prevalent conditions within the preparatory student population of northern Tasmania. Unfortunately, a substantial number of these speech and/or language-impaired students failed to access available speech pathology services during their kindergarten year. Teacher administration of mandatory educational assessment, designed to identify ‘at risk’ kindergarten students, has been identified as one reason for poor student access to speech pathology services during the first year of formal schooling. Not only were teachers found to be inaccurate in identifying students with speech, and to a greater extent language impairment using the KDC, but students identified as having speech and/or language impairment on this specific tool were not routinely referred to speech pathology services. Given the key role of teachers in administering the KDC to identify students in need of speech pathology services, local speechlanguage pathologists must seek to improve: a) the sensitivity of the KDC; and b) the knowledge of teaching professionals regarding the presentation of speech and/or language impairment and the importance of early referral.

Thesis (M. (Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if patient characteristics or clinical variables could predict who benefits from individual auditory training. Method: A retrospective series of analyses were performed using a data set from a large, multisite, randomized controlled clinical trial that compared the treatment effects of at-home auditory training programs in bilateral hearing aid users. The treatment arms were (a) use of the 20-day computerized Listening and Communication Enhancement program, (b) use of the 10-day digital versatile disc Listening and Communication Enhancement program, (c) use of a placebo “books-on-tape” training, and (d) educational counseling (active control). Multiple linear regression models using data from 263 participants were conducted to determine if patient and clinical variables predicted short-term improvement on word-recognition-in-noise abilities, self-reported hearing handicap, and self-reported hearing problems. Results: Baseline performance significantly predicted performance on each variable, explaining 11%–17% of the variance in improvement. The treatment arm failed to emerge as a significant predictor with other clinical variables explaining less than 9% of the variance. Conclusion: These results suggest that hearing aid users who have poorer aided word-recognition-in-noise scores and greater residual activity limitations and participation restrictions will show the largest improvement in these areas.