This study evaluated the use of behavior skills training with the instructions and modeling components conducted using either in-vivo or a video for the acquisition of skills required to conduct a communication assessment. A total of six participants from a Communication Disorders and Sciences Masters degree program completed the training. The behavior skills training package included four components: instruction, modeling, role-playing, and feedback. A maintenance probe was conducted between three to seven days after training criterion was met. Results indicated that both in-vivo and video instructions and modeling of the communication assessment were successful in teaching students without a background in behavior analysis. The participants whose training included the video instructions and modeling scored 100% on their first maintenance trial block while the two of the three in-vivo participants did not. Implications for these results could further the growth and development of communication assessments as well as strengthen the relationship between behavior analytic principles to practices that overlap.

This study explored microaggressions that underrepresented students in Communication Sciences and Disorders experience. Phase I included a survey that was sent out to 276 undergraduate and graduate students at one university with 14 questions. Students were asked to identify with demographic variables, rate their sense of belonging, and discuss microaggressions they had experienced. Phase II comprised of individual interviews with six participants that further explored their experience as an underrepresented student in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Interviews were transcribed and coded using a content analysis. Across the two phases, quantitative, mixed-method, and content analyses were completed. Interviews were transcribed and a qualitative analysis included cross tabulating demographic variables with the number and basis of microaggression. The frequency, type, and basis of microaggressions were identified through the mixed-methods analysis. The content analysis resulted in the emergence of two major themes: belonging and feedback. Within the first theme of belonging, there were three codes: facilitators, obstructors, and changes in belonging. In the second theme, feedback, there were two codes: macrointerventions and microinterventions. Findings reveal students from underrepresented groups experience a variety of types and bases of microaggressions at a higher frequency than their peers. Other findings include students with hidden identities report experiencing higher rates of microinvalidations, the need for multiple interventions, and the benefit of connection for underrepresented students. Future research should study additional universities and demographic variables.

No description available.

The focus of this research is on the collaboration relationships of teachers and therapists working in school-based provision for pupils with language and communication disorders. The research is concerned with how the collaboration relationship operates as a power relation for these individuals. There is an attempt to work out something of the effects of changing notions of professionalism in its historical and current versions. The research reveals individuals' identifications with the powerful discourses in this contingent context, manifested in their metaphors and discursive moves. It analyses the complex interaction of discourses and cultural discourses/practices, attempting to grasp the effects of the powerful discourses as individuals construct and re-construct multiple professional and cultural identities and subject positions. In its examination of the political and cultural functioning of the forces of power-knowledge-selves-desire, the research analyses the operation of five dimensions of power at work in these relationships. The analysis subsequently suggests some implications for teacher/therapist co-practice. The research attends to the discourses of inter-professional collaboration in government policy documentation at the macro level, within local authority and school-institution policy statements at the meso level and in the way that participants write and speak of their collaborations at a micro leveL. Macro level discourses were examined in the relevant speech and language therapy and education agencies' policy documentation including Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools (HMI) Report (1996) and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) (1996) statement of professional standards. Meso level discourses were sought in the relevant local education authority and school policy documentation. Micro level discourses were explored in instances of individuals' talk about their collaborative practice. Participants' accounts were gathered in semi-structured interviews, audiotaped collaborators' meeting talk and written texts. Individual experiences within specific collaboration relationships have not perhaps been grasped or understood in research into teacher/therapist co-working which draws upon positivist methodology and uses positivist methods. There is much previous research which theorizes collaboration at interagency or interprofessionallevels or that takes a systems theory approach that seeks to generalize norms of 'effectiveness' at either or both of these levels. This research was concerned to explore individuals' experiences of co-practice in an analysis which questioned co-practice norms and attempted to unsettle certainties. Participants' accounts in this analysis suggested a more continuous, fluid process of construction and re-construction of individuals' subject positions characterised by unstable identifications. Analysis of individuals' accounts revealed their subjection to the powerful discourses and their active exploitations of those discourses as resources, their subject positions manifested in their discursive choices, ambivalences, oscilations, evasions and miscalculations. Certain of the ways were uncovered in which multiple, unstable practice and co-practice related discourses interplay and compete, working to produce individuals subject to their power; and providing the discursive resources which individuals deploy as they constitute and reconstitute discourse/practice identity positions in their struggles for domination within their relationships. This analysis suggests certain of the effects of the powerful discourses as the participants constitute and re-constitute acceptable power sharing practices, positions within the dimensions of power which, at times collide with positions acceptable to the other. A number of possibilities for the co-practice of teachers and therapists in school-site provision for pupils with language and communication disorders are identified and discussed. These suggest how school institutions' and agencies' policy makers might attend to the diversity and plurality of teachers' and therapists' discursive resources and co-practices. These also suggest that spaces for the exploration of teacher/therapist discourse/practice differences as these relate to the notion of shared discursive resources and co-practice should be opened-up. These further suggest the need to question current policies and practices using a wider variety of conceptual and analytical tools and the need for shared learning spaces which might promote more personally acceptable practices underpinned by knowledge of each other's aspirations.

Recent research has provided evidence that speech-related visual feedback presented to people who stutter may enhance fluency as effectively as well-established forms of altered auditory feedback. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of visual feedback during speaking conditions that approximated naturalistic conversation. In order to determine what aspects of visual feedback may contribute to fluency enhancement, the feedback was manipulated in terms of synchronicity and linguistic congruence to the original signal. Participants included ten adults diagnosed with developmental stuttering with no concurring conditions. The study consisted of the following four conditions: synchronous visual feedback, asynchronous visual feedback, non-speech related visual feedback, and a control condition. Speech samples were analyzed for the percent of syllables stuttered per condition. Upon analysis of data, no statistically significant effect of visual feedback was found on stuttering frequency, although individual results varied greatly. / by Jamie Heidenreich. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

The distinctiveness of brain structures and circuits depends on interacting gene products, yet the organization of these molecules (the "transcriptome") within and across brain areas remains unclear. High-throughput, neuroanatomically-specific gene expression datasets such as the Allen Human Brain Atlas (AHBA) and Allen Mouse Brain Atlas (AMBA) have recently become available, providing unprecedented opportunities to quantify molecular neuroanatomy. This dissertation seeks to clarify how transcriptomic organization relates to conventional neuroanatomy within and across species, and to introduce the use of gene expression data as a bridge between genotype and phenotype in complex behavioral disorders. The first part of this work examines large-scale, regional transcriptomic organization separately in the mouse and human brain. The use of dimensionality reduction methods and cross-sample correlations both revealed greater similarity between samples drawn from the same brain region. Sample profiles and differentially expressed genes across regions in the human brain also showed consistent anatomical specificity in a second human dataset with distinct sampling properties. The frequent use of mouse models in clinical research points to the importance of comparing molecular neuroanatomical organization across species. The second part of this dissertation describes three comparative approaches. First, at genome scale, expression profiles within homologous brain regions tended to show higher similarity than those from non-homologous regions, with substantial variability across regions. Second, gene subsets (defined using co-expression relationships or shared annotations), which provide region-specific, cross-species molecular signatures were identified. Finally, brain-wide expression patterns of orthologous genes were compared. Neuron and oligodendrocyte markers were more correlated than expected by chance, while astrocyte markers were less so. The localization and co-expression of genes reflect functional relationships that may underlie high-level functions. The final part of this dissertation describes a database of genes that have been implicated in speech and language disorders, and identifies brain regions where they are preferentially expressed or co-expressed. Several brain structures with functions relevant to four speech and language disorders showed co-expression of genes associated with these disorders. In particular, genes associated with persistent developmental stuttering showed stronger preferential co-expression in the basal ganglia, a structure of known importance in this disorder.

Speech-language pathologists are constantly trying to use the most efficient and effective assessments to obtain information about the phonetic inventory, speech sound errors, and phonological error patterns of children who are suspected of having a speech sound disorder. These assessments may involve a standardized measure of single words and/or sentences and a non standardized measure, such as a spontaneous speech sample. While research has shown both of these types of assessments to give clinicians information about a child's speech production abilities, the use of delayed imitation tasks, either words or sentences, has not been a widely studied topic and has produced conflicting results when researched. The purpose of the present study was to examine speech sound production abilities in children with a speech sound disorder in a single-word task, an imitated sentence task, and spontaneous speech sample to compare their results of speech sound errors, phonological error patterns, and time administration. The study used the Phonological and Articulatory Bilingual Assessment - English version (PABA-E, Gildersleeve-Neumann , 2008), a formal assessment for identifying children who may have a speech sound disorder. Three male children, between the ages of 4;0 and 5;4 (years;months), participated in this study. All participants were being treated by a speech-language pathologist for a diagnosed speech sound disorder and had hearing within normal limits. The results of the study showed that the majority of participants produced the highest number of speech sounds targeted within the imitated sentence task. Participants attempted and produced the least amount of speech sounds on their spontaneous speech sample. The assessment with the highest percentage of accurately produced consonants was the imitated sentence task. The majority of participants produced a higher number of error patterns in their single-word and imitated sentence task. In terms of efficiency and effectiveness, the imitated sentence task took the least amount of time to administer and transcribe.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Online version available on the World Wide Web.

This study concerns the decisions and expertise of speech and language therapists (sits) working with preschool children, in particular, the selection and prioritisation of newly referred youngsters for therapy. The literature review covers three aspects: the difficulties of identifying communication disorders in preschool children; the nature of speech & language therapy knowledge; the nature of the selection and prioritisation task. These three aspects provide the theoretical foundations of the study and gave rise to the selection of a multimethod and predominantly qualitative methodology. Using a series of knowledge elicitation tasks, the selection and prioritisation decision was explored. A small group of expert slts participated in semistructured interviews, case history analyses, focus group discussions and card sorting exercises. The results are summarised under three headings: the child, the process and the expertise. The study identifies areas considered significant in the discrimination of priority children. In particular, the co-consideration of the child's communication skills and the supporting communicative context emerged as the key categories. Features within these categories associated with priority and nonpriority children were identified. The process emerged as one whereby sits collected and evaluated baseline descriptions of the child and context. As these findings accumulated, they were judged as to their diagnostic and prognostic significance, as evidence of progress and as potential causes for sit concern. Substantial consensus was demonstrated between sits suggesting that the knowledge elicited emanated from a body of knowledge rather than being idiosyncratic. Even where variation occurred, patterns were evident, reflecting the possible existence of theories-of-action related to differing working contexts. The results are presented as theories-of-action which underpin slts decisions. As such they will be of support to junior sits in their understanding of the selection and prioritisation task and to more experienced slts in making their own decisions explicit.

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 1994. / "A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), the University of Hong Kong, 29th, April, 1994." Also available in print.