Researchers are seeking more information . on how and why language disorders tend to run in families, particularly siblings of language disordered children. The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of language and related disorders in the siblings of two groups of children: those with slow expressive language development (SELD) and those with a normal language history. This study sought to answer the following questions: 1) Is there a significant difference in prevalence of language problems in two groups of children: those with SELD and those with a normal language history?, and 2) Is there a greater probability of language problems in the siblings of children in the SELD group who have receptive/expressive language disorders when compared to those SELD children with pure expressive language deficits or to those with a normal language history? Subjects were 45 7-and 8-year old children participating in a longitudinal study at Portland State University. The children were divided into two groups, normal and SELD, based on test scores administered at intake to the original study. In order to look at the effect of a receptive component on heritability of language disorders, the SELD group was subgrouped into pure expressive language disorders and receptive/expressive language disorders based on tests administered at intake. A family history questionnaire was the method of data collection, asking parents to report on ten areas of language and related disorders in the siblings of subjects. Results of one-sided z-tests and a chi-square test were computed and consistently found a highly significant difference between groups, with families of SELD subjects more likely to report a history of language problems over the normal group. These results are consistent with previous research in showing the heritability of language disorders. Results may also indicate that a receptive language component is associated with heritability of specific language disorders among children.

For many years, treatment for word retrieval deficits has involved the use of various cueing techniques to help trigger retrieval of target words. Research has shown that accuracy for future retrieval of target words is best achieved by training subjects with semantically based cues. Personalized cues that are created by the subjects themselves to help remember a target word have been shown to be the most effective of the semantically based cues. However, even with the use of personalized cues, accuracy for naming tasks has been found to decrease once training is completed. Current research in memory indicates that, for normal subjects, techniques that facilitate future recall of information include testing, additional study, overlearning, and distributed practice. This research examined the influence of posttraining maintenance sessions on the long term memory of subjects with aphasia. The goal was to compare the effect on naming accuracy for stimuli (a) presented in two additional training sessions (b) presented in one additional session, (c) not presented in any additional sessions. Additional sessions presented opportunities for testing, study, overlearning, and distributed practice for selected stimuli. Three adult male subjects with moderate aphasia created their own cues to help remember 30 pictures of famous characters. During training sessions, these cues were presented to trigger name recall. Following the end of the 3-week training period, the 30 pictures were divided into groups of 10 cards called, A, B, and C. There were two additional training sessions for A, one for B, and none for C. A probe following the last session showed that for two of the subjects, the addition of posttraining maintenance sessions acted to enhance naming accuracy, and two sessions resulted in much higher accuracy than one session. This is consistent with research with normal subjects and suggests that short intermittent training sessions can help maintain naming accuracy with subjects with aphasia.

In the decade (1920-1930) that followed numerous textbooks as such appeared for the teacher of speech, and courses in public speaking were added to high school curriculums in many states. In Kentucky, in 1929, the State Department of Public Education advised and urged the high schools to add this course to their curriculum and to encourage all students to take it. Many of the high schools established separate departments for this course; others added it to their courses in English. Nearly all the Smith-Hughes High Schools, which were established in 1917, require training in public speaking. Since direct world communication has been made possible by the advance of science, the need for training in the use of the spoken word is now a necessity for all peoples. There is reason to believe that educators, in recognizing this need, have borne in mind a general objective of "Speech Education for all American Youth." Kentucky schools have pursued this objective since 1929. Courses in this valuable training have been added to Kentucky high school curriculums and encouragement has been given to the students who pursue them.

Most of the previous published research involving intelligibility has focused on persons with various disabilities or delays. Minimal research has been conducted on intelligibility in young children with no diagnosed speech and/ or language disorders. The result is a gap in normative data by which to set a standard to judge speech as being at an acceptable level of intelligibility for a particular age group. The focus of this pilot study was to collect normative data on the intelligibility of young children, ages 3:6 ±2 months, with no diagnosed speech and/or language disorder. ~ Thirteen subjects, ages 3:6 ±2 months, were recruited from the greater Portland/Vancouver area. These subjects were screened for normal development in speech sound production, expressive/receptive language, and hearing. It was also established that English was the primary language spoken in the home. Resonance, voice quality, and fluency were informally assessed by the researcher during the course of the session and found to be normal. The 100-word speech samples were collected by the researcher on audiotape and later played back to two listeners, who were familiar with the topic but unfamiliar with the speaker. The listeners orthographically transcribed the samples and a comparison was made by the researcher between the two sets of written transcriptions. This comparison provided the percentage of intelligible words, out of a possible 100, which were understood by both listeners. The results showed the mean intelligibility percentage for 31/2-year-old children with no diagnosed speech and/or language disorders to be 88% (SD = 5.7%) with a range of intelligibility from 76% to 96 % . Both the mode and the median for this sample were 90 % . Several other variables were addressed as points of interest but the comparisons were not investigated in depth. The focus of this study was to collect, in a methodically documented manner, normative data on intelligibility in 3 1/2-year-olds. When the results from this study are compared to the only other available data (Weiss, 1982), they were found to fall within 1 SD of each other (SD = 5.7%), indicating that there are no measurable differences between the findings.

When attempting to communicate with another person, the success or failure that a communicator perceives, he or she interprets as understanding or misunderstanding. Research has shown that "perceived understanding" or the "feeling of being understood" is important in self-concept development. However, for some time researchers have focused on the listener's needs and the speaker's needs have been given less attention. Yet, the listener's role in meeting the speaker's needs, particularly in providing feedback to the speaker, is of utmost importance if the speaker is to have the "feeling of being understood." This research examined the concept of the "feeling of being listened to," as it relates to the "feeling of being understood." Eye contact, vocalics, and head nods were examined as listener behaviors that affect "perceived listening." Alone, in a private room, each subject viewed a randomly-assigned videotape, imagining him- or herself as the speaker, thus, taking the speaker's perspective. The videotape showed the listener, who responded to the speaker with none, one, or all three nonverbal behaviors being tested. Immediately after viewing the videotape, subjects completed two instruments that identified the probability of eye contact, vocalics, and head nods, as pre-conditions of "perceived listening" and "perceived listening" as a pre-condition of "perceived understanding." Tests of the first four hypotheses about the relationship between nonverbal behaviors and perceived listening were non-significant. The test of the fifth hypothesis about the correlation between perceived listening and perceived understanding was significant, but there was some indication that these two concepts may be redundant. A post-hoc analysis of the relationship between nonverbal behaviors and perceived understanding yielded nonsignificant results, supporting the concern that perceived listening and perceived understanding may be redundant concepts.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between occurrence of 10 phonological processes, singly and in groups, with mean percentage of intelligibility of connected speech samples. Participants in the study included 4 adult listeners (3 females, one male) and 46 speakers aged 48 to 66 months (16 females, 30 males). Percentage of occurrence scores for phonological processes (independent variables) were obtained by the administration of The Assessment of Phonological Processes - Revised (Hodson, 1986). Percentage of intelligibility for 100-word connected speech samples (dependent variables) were obtained by orthographic transcription (words understood divided by 100). The single processes showing the strongest negative correlation with intelligibility of connected speech included consonant sequence omission, glide class deficiency, syllable omission, and velar class deficiency, with reliability beyond the .001 level. The combination of consonant sequence omission, syllable omission, nasal class deficiency, and velar class deficiency accounted for 83% of the variance in the dependent variable. In this equation, consonant sequence omission alone accounted for 70% of the variance. Significance is beyond the .05 level for these measures. Results of the study lead to the recommendation that the following phonological processes are high priority targets for remediation: consonant sequence omission, syllable reduction and glide class deficiency, syllable reduction, and velar class deficiency.

The group of people aged 85 years and older is the fastest growing chronological population on the United States (Neal et al., 1993), and while a considerable amount of research has focused on the language of the elderly (those over 65 years), relatively little study has focused specifically on those aged 85 and older. This study is valuable in that it includes a large sample of optimally healthy people aged 85 and older. This sample of the optimally-healthy oldest-old will help define what changes, if any, are a function of age alone and what changes are clinical (associated with some disease, neurologic complication, or psychological impairment). The purpose of this study was to compare two groups of elderly people's use of cohesion during an expository discourse task. This study also sought to answer the following question: If no health problems exist, does age alone affect the cohesion in the expository discourse of the elderly? To effect this comparison, a comparison of cohesive use in a group of 12 people between the ages of 65 and 75 years (the young-old) was contrasted with cohesion used by a group of 27 people aged 85 years and older (the oldest-old). The subjects were gathered as part of the Oregon Brain Aging Study under the direction of doctors Diane Howieson and Jeffrey Kaye of the Portland VA Medical Center. The subjects had to meet strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. As part of the evaluations for the Oregon Brain Aging Study, each subject was audiotaped while describing the fishing picture from the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Inventory (Kiernan et al., 1987). Each sample was then transcribed, divided into T-Units, and analyzed according to the cohesive analysis designed by Liles (1985) and Liles et al. (1989). Group comparisons for each aspect of cohesion (frequency, style, and adequacy) was completed using a 1- test. No significant differences at the .05 level were found on any of the measures.

Although there is agreement in the literature that memory is required for language, there is disagreement as to whether certain memory abilities are prerequisite for language. There has been a significant amount of research in the field of memory development as it relates to language; however, little research has been done in the area of memory and language development in the preschool aged child. This study examined two aspects of auditory memory and language development in the preschool child: (a) the auditory memory abilities of delayed language children versus normal language children, and (b) determining if there is a relationship between auditory memory and language development. The subjects used in this study included 14 ''normal talkers" and 14 children with "slow expressive language development'' (SELD), as determined by the Language Development Survey (Rescorla, 1989) given when the subjects were between 24-34 months of age. When the subjects were 3 years-old they were given the verbal and digit imitation section of the Preschool Language Scale (PLS) as a measure of auditory short-term memory. The results were compared with the Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Revised (TACL-R), the Developmental Sentence Scoring (DSS) and the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test (NSST-E) all given at age three. A further comparison was made with the PLS and the Test of Language Development-Primary (TOLD-P) and the DSSJ given at age 4. The Spearman rank correlational statistic was used to determine if a significant relationship existed between memory and language development as seen on the PLS (age 3) and the other language measures given at ages 3 and 4. This study showed that SELD children performed more poorly on verbal and digit memory tasks than their normally speaking peers. Correlational analysis revealed that the PLS-Digit and the PLS-Sentence memory recall tasks were significantly correlated with the DSS given at the same point in time for the normal group, and between the PLS-Sentence and the NSST-E given at the same time for the SELD group. This suggests that a relationship exists between memory and expressive language at the same point in development. Because the relationship exists at the same time, and not across-ages, these findings seem to support the theory that language and memory are related in development, but memory skills at one time do not predict language skills at another. As language and memory seem to be related at the same point in time, testing auditory short-term memory skills in children with language delays will not add new information above what is learned in language testing itself. Further research in this area might investigate whether, as some literature suggests (Kail, 1990), teaching memory strategies to young children with language delays may improve language learning.

The confidence to communicate orally with others is the first requisite for verbal interaction. Anxiety which occurs in anticipation of speaking with others or while engaged in speaking hinders interaction, and is referred to as communication apprehension. This study examines levels of communication apprehension among a sample primary school population and the possible relationship between such levels and frequencies of nonverbal behaviors called self-adaptors that may be associated with the anxiety. Greater awareness of communication apprehension in children is justified in light of research that suggests it is negatively related to academic achievement in elementary school students. A four-month field~study was conducted in a Northwestern suburban elementary school by the researcher who had taught in the school for the previous seven years. The hypothesis tested was that a positive correlation exists between levels of communication apprehension and displayed self-adaptor behaviors. The study employed methodological triangulation, using both quantitative and qualitative data. An established self-report measure (MECA) consisting of a 20-item questionnaire suggesting various communication situations was administered to 42 third grade students and analyzed using descriptive statistics. Students scoring one standard deviation above the mean were identified as communication apprehensive (CA). Nervous behaviors called self-adaptors were tallied using a researcher developed measurement tool (UBSSF), and the frequencies of these behaviors correlated with the results of the self-report measure to find the predicted association. The hypothesis was not supported in this study. Complementary qualitative information also provided substantial data. This included classroom observations and videotapings of students in small group work sessions, individual recorded interviews of the CA students using film elicitation and interviews with their classroom teachers, field notes (general notations, oral data from teaching specialists, and additional demographic information), and continuing information from the apprehensive students following the conduct of the study. All qualitative data was examined for cross-situational consistency thought to be associated with communication apprehension. Significant evidence for a correlation between levels of communication apprehension and frequency of self-adaptor behaviors was not found. However, this study contributed to a greater understanding of CA by challenging currently held views on communication apprehension. Also, through the use of method triangulation, quantitative and qualitative forms of self report provided some evidence for the crosssituational consistency of CA. Communication apprehensive students were found to be aware of their anxieties and able to verbally address their fears. The phenomenological interpretation of CA student and teacher interview texts facilitated the reconstruction of the participants' perspectives. Finally, suggestions by the researcher addressed the training of teachers to raise their awareness of communication apprehension and to provide needed accommodation of CA students in the classroom.

This thesis examines the contribution made by the U.S. print media to the development of Nelson Mandela's public persona. The period studied is from 1985 to June, 1990. This thesis explores the following questions: 1) How did the public persona of Nelson Mandela evolve in the dominant U.S. print media; 2) How do these stories, in content and form, serve to establish Nelson Mandela as a public hero; 3) What cultural myths structure the news stories of Nelson Mandela that serve as the interpretative framework for public belief and action? Data for analysis were drawn from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Each newspaper has a daily circulation of over 1 million. It was found that during the period studied, the development of Mandela's public persona occurred in two distinct phases: 1985 to mid-1989 and late 1989 to June, 1990. Analysis reveals that the media relied on narrative form to create an image of Mandela which invites the reader to accept, believe in, and support Mandela and his cause. During these phases the media established Nelson Mandela as a hero and celebrity for their reader audience via a number of rhetorical practices. These include: the introduction of Mandela as a legend and hero among black South Africans; the practice of surrounding Mandela with mythical reference; establishing Mandela as an individual who subscribes to many traditional American values and; the serial reporting of pseudo-events. Implications of the study and suggestions for further research in the areas of textual analysis, policy analysis, and audience analysis are discussed.