This study investigated the effect of distracting linguistic background noise on children’s ability to perform three-part commands. A total of twelve first grade subjects, six “normal” and six reading delayed, were individually administered a series of twenty, three-part commands. Each child performed once in quiet and once in a noise environment, and the performances in those two conditions were compared.

In recent years, operant conditioning techniques have been effectively used to modify a variety of behaviors. For the most part, the modification of stuttering behavior has relied solely on the use of punishment. The shaping of "fluency” through differential reinforcement has been reported as a behavioral approach for the treatment of stuttering; however, the effectiveness of this technique in combination with other "teaching" tools, such as, modeling, instruction, and explanation has not been reported in the literature. The purpose of this study was to construct behavioral definitions of terminology utilized in a stuttering treatment program at Portland State University to produce "self-monitored normal, fluent speech" and to structure the procedures of this program with regard to baseline, conditioning, and extinction in order to provide a base for further research leading to the standardization of procedures for this program. A 35 year old male was chosen as the subject for this study. Specific procedures were applied in three baseline sessions in order to determine the base operant level of interference responses and positive and negative language responses in reading, monologue, and dialogue settings. The emission of interference and language responses were tracked throughout the conditioning and follow-up phases of the program by (I) random sample analysis of audio tapes by the experimenter and (2) a complete analysis of video-tapes by the experimenter and six student trackers. The response goals of the conditioning phase included four progressive stages of motor response ("stretch and flow, "increased breathiness-reduced stretch," "reduced breathiness," and "normal, fluent speech") in addition to a repertoire of positive language responses. The self-monitoring of these responses was conditioned by using differential reinforcement supported by modeling, instruction, and explanation of responses. Throughout the conditioning phase, varying schedules and magnitudes of different reinforcements were utilized to strengthen the subject's monitoring of the above responses in increasing intensities of environmental stimuli. An examiner, other than the experimenter, administered the procedures for a follow-up baseline four weeks after the conditioning phase in order to determine the base operant level of interference responses and positive and negative language responses in reading, monologue, and dialogue settings after the removal of reinforcement in the clinic. The results of the data obtained from the baseline and follow up phases of the program revealed a reduction from 11.7 to 0.86 in the total number of interference responses per minute emitted by the subject and an increase from 29 to 83 percent of positive language responses. These results suggest the effectiveness of the procedures in this program for establishing “self-monitored normal, fluent speech" behavior.

Research regarding children's instrumental articulation development has provided the speech clinician with schedules of speech sound development. These developmental tables list ages when specific phonemes are mastered by normal children. Such schedules tend to give the impression that certain sounds must be developed before others can occur. Menyuk (1972) has expressed a similar point of view regarding phonemes /t/ and /k/. She has hypothesized: that phoneme /t/ must develop before phoneme /k/; and that sound element initial /t/ is mastered at an earlier age than initial /k/. The present investigation was designed to operationally test the validity of Menyuk's observations. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the ages at which phonemes /t/ and /k/ are mastered by normally developing children, thereby obtaining the order in which these phonemes are learned. A secondary purpose was to present an alternative to the concept of mastery of speech sounds by determining the ages at which children acquire phonemes /t/ and /k/. Four specific questions were posed by this study: Is phoneme /t/ mastered before phoneme /k/? Is sound element initial [t} mastered before initial [k]? What is the order of mastery of the remaining two sound elements of each phoneme? What is the order of acquisition of the two phonemes?

Hoarseness seems to be the primary type of voice disorder occurring in school-aged children. Voice experts have suggested measurement of maximum phonation times as a clinical tool for assessing vocal function (Fairbanks, 1940; Westlake and Rutherford, 1961; Irwin, 1965; Boone, 1971). Most of the studies on duration of phonation have used adults as subjects; few investigations have involved children. An apparent need, therefore, existed to investigate duration of phonation in young children.

The purpose of this study was to compare the graphic production of fluent and non-fluent aphasic groups in terms of motoric and linguistic characteristics at three intervals of recovery, and to analyze change over time after combining the fluent and non-fluent aphasic groups.

One of the primary responsibilities of a speech pathologist is the assessment of a child’s language. Many studies have been done in the area of language development. The results of these studies have varied causing concern among researchers over the validity of the data gathered. Many factors that could affect the results of previous research have been investigated. Until recently, however, there has been relatively little research about the effects of examiner differences on the results of language assessments. Research in the area of examiner differences has resulted in the discovery of factors which could affect the results of language assessments and, more specifically, Mean Length of Response (MLR). McGuigan (1963) suggested the interaction of the examiner's personality characteristics and the independent variable. Cowan et al., (1963) suggested examiner and stimulus variables could affect the subject according to the age and sex of the child. Wilson (1969) stated that there was no standardization for an examiner's method of eliciting a language sample or for the stimulus materials used by the examiner. Casteel (1969) suggested an interaction between the examiner and the setting of the examination. He concluded that the best results were obtained when the examiner was in his most comfortable setting (the mother in the home and the speech pathologist in the clinic). A study by Mathis (1970) substantiated the results of the study by Casteel (1969). Mathis concluded that the speech pathologist elicits as representative a language sample from the child in the clinic as the mother elicits from the child in the home. The purpose of this study was to discover to what extent the MLR of children will differ when elicited by two examiners, the speech pathologist and the mother, who are in the clinical setting. Fourteen children, four years of age, were examined in the clinical setting by the speech pathologist and the mother. Twenty-eight 15-minute tape recorded conversations were transcribed, the MLR tabulated, and the results analyzed statistically by means of the t-test for significance. The Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was used to compare the consistency of each child's performance with that of his peers from one examination to another. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the amount of language elicited by the speech pathologist and the mother in favor of the speech pathologist when the examination takes place in the clinical setting. The .05 level of confidence was established for this test.

The purpose of this study was to compare the frequency of specific disfluencies in 3 year old and 5 year old normal male children in terms of part-word repetitions, word repetitions, phrase repetitions, interjections, revision-incomplete phrases, disrhythmic phonations and tense pauses. The disfluencies were observed while each child spontaneously interacted with an investigator in a clinical room. Two questions were addressed: 1. Do three-year-old male children exhibit a higher overall frequency of disfluencies than five-yearold male children? 2. Do three-year-old male children exhibit a greater frequency of certain disfluencies than five-year old male children?

The purpose of the present study was to determine what, if any, relationship existed between the correspondence of perceptions between superior-subordinate work dyads and the superior's rating of the subordinate's work performance.

This study was an examination of responses to a standardized assessment of social-emotional behaviors and correlation with speech and language development in young children with cleft palate and/or lip. Twenty-eight participants aged 14-35 months with nonsyndromic cleft palate and or lip were included in this study. The Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) was used to identify emerging social and emotional behaviors. Descriptive analysis of ITSEA results was completed. Pearson correlation coefficient and effect size estimates were calculated between ITSEA domain raw scores and measures of speech and language development. A small proportion of participants (14%) showed ITSEA scores beyond the test cut-off scores across all domains ; 43% demonstrated concerns at the subdomain level. Correlational analysis indicated significant relationships between Externalizing, Dysregulation, and Competence Domains and speech accuracy and language measures. Interpretation of the outcomes suggests that early social emotional behaviors are emerging simultaneously with speech and language skills during early communicative development.

Tinnitus has been bothering humanity since Ancient Babylon, plaguing everyone from Leonardo da Vinci to Charles Darwin. Today, roughly one in seven people worldwide experiences this auditory sensation. So what exactly is tinnitus, and where does this persistent sound come from? Marc Fagelson travels into the auditory system to explore the loss of silence.