The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of the comorbidity of emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) and speech/language disorders among those students identified as under The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act criteria as emotionally disturbed and speech impaired. The literature reviewed included clinical and school settings that examined a cooccurrence of language disorders in the EBD population. Other research reported a lack of routine involvement of speech/language therapists in the assessment of the EBD population. Implications from clinical studies suggested a need for greater attention to language disorders in a multi- and interdisciplinary assessment. This study investigated the prevalence of the dual occurrence of EBD and speech/language disorders in Grades 2 through 6 in Texas schools in light of the known research. Relationships in ethnicity and socioeconomic status were examined using chi-square test of independence. Aggregate data were obtained from the database of the Texas Pupil Information Management System and from survey questionnaire responses provided by speech therapists in selected districts. The literature review focused on the impact of language in the development of appropriate personal interactions and communication skills, especially those relevant to pragmatic language factors and the implications of language competency in successful personal living and career roles and supported the importance of language as an important contributor to a person's life success and the correlation of EBD disabilities and speech/language disorders. Social skills instruction, the relationship of language, especially pragmatics, and social competencies for this population are included. The results revealed a relationship between ethnicity and speech/language disorders among the students identified with EBD. In considering the population of students identified as EBD and language disordered, a significant relationship was found between ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Recommendations include suggestions for future research, assessment procedures, classroom interventions, and data collection methods.

Introdução: As articulações compensatórias são alterações de fala decorrentes da tentativa do indivíduo com fissura palatina/disfunção velofaríngea gerar pressão intraoral para a produção das consoantes de alta pressão. Essas alterações se iniciam por causa da alteração estrutural e podem passar a fazer parte do sistema fonológico do indivíduo, sendo a fonoterapia a intervenção indicada para sua correção. Desta maneira a hipótese deste trabalho é que um programa de fonoterapia intensiva (PFI) estruturado reúne as condições facilitadoras para a correção da oclusiva glotal, que é o tipo de articulação compensatória (AC) mais comumente encontrado na fala desses indivíduos. Objetivo: Investigar a influência de um PFI sobre a ocorrência da oclusiva glotal (OG) na fala de indivíduos com fissura palatina. Material e Métodos: As gravações de fala de 37 indivíduos, de ambos os sexos (média de idade = 19 anos), com fissura palatina foram julgadas por três fonoaudiólogas (avaliadoras) experientes na identificação da ocorrência de OG em 24 consoantes-alvo com recorrência das seis consoantes oclusivas do Português (p, t, k, b, d, g), antes de serem submetidos a um PFI (condição pré-PFI) e após o PFI (condição pós-PFI), para comparação. Resultados: A presença de OG, na condição pré-PFI, foi encontrada em 325 consoantes-alvo de 36 das 37 gravações, dentre as quais, na condição pós-PFI, 149 (46%) continuaram a apresentar OG e 176 (54%) não. Considerando a ocorrência de OG nas 24 consoantes-alvo das frases dos 36 pacientes, observou-se que após o PFI 5 (14%) conseguiram eliminar a OG em todas as consoantes-alvo; 4 (11%) não apresentaram mudança e 27 (75%) apresentaram redução da ocorrência de OG. Conclusão: O PFI teve influência sobre a ocorrência da oclusiva glotal na fala de indivíduos com fissura palatina, sendo esta menor após a intervenção. / Introduction: Compensatory articulations are speech disorders due to the attempt of the individual with cleft palate/velopharyngeal dysfunction to generate intraoral pressure for the production of high-pressure consonants. These disorders happen because structural alteration and can become part of the phonological system of the individual. Speech therapy is the indicated intervention for their correction. The hypothesis of this study is that a structured intensive speech therapy program (PFI) meets the facilitating conditions for the correction of the glottal stops, which is the most common compensatory articulation in the speech of these individuals. Objective: To investigate the influence of a PFI on the occurrence of glottal stop (OG) in the speech of individuals with cleft palate. Material and Methods: Speech recordings of 37 cleft palate individuals, both genders (mean age = 19 years), were judged by three experienced speech pathologists (judges) to identify the occurrence of OG in 24 target consonants with a recurrence of the six occlusive consonants of the Portuguese Language (p, t, k, b, d, g). For the purpose of comparison, the judgements were accomplished before PFI (pre-PFI condition) and after the individuals have been undergone to the PFI (post-PFI condition). Results: Presence of OG in the pre-PFI condition was found in 325 target consonants of 36 out of the 37 recordings. In the pos-PFI condition, out of the 325, 149 (46%) continued to present OG and 176 (54%) did not. Considering the occurrence of OG in the 24 target consonants of the sentences of the 36 patients, it was observed that after the PFI 5 (14%) of them were able to eliminate the OG in all the target consonants; 4 (11%) presented no change and 27 (75%) had a reduction in the occurrence of OG. Conclusion: The PFI had influence on the occurrence of the OG in the speech of cleft palate, which reduction was smaller after the PFI.

Reading comprehension emerges as an important skill set in the early elementary grades. It is supported by component skills including decoding, linguistic knowledge including vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, as well as more complex, higher-level components such as inference making and comprehension monitoring. Theoretical understanding of reading comprehension has historically included reader-focused models, as well as models that include reader-text interaction and text-task interaction. Together, the dimensions of reader, text, and task represent the conceptual space in which comprehension can occur. Using a crossed random-effects model, the probability of a correct item response can be modeled as a function of reader, text, and item characteristics. This approach has been used in several studies of reading comprehension, with informative results. However, to date this work has focused on older readers, or has used relatively small samples of readers. In this study, a crossed random-effects modeling approach was used to analyze a large data set consisting of item response data from a sample of 2,723 Grade 3 students. Student-level predictors of vocabulary knowledge, syntactic knowledge, and word recognition, as well as several categorizations of item type, and passage-level predictors of lexile and several indices of passage complexity were found to be significant predictors of reading comprehension. Cross-level interactions were investigated, and significant interactions were found between student and item predictors, and between student and passage predictors. Approximately 50% of variance in reading comprehension across students was explained by the student-level predictors, but only 18-22% of variance across items was explained by the passage-level and item-level predictors. Results from this study suggest that for Grade 3 readers, the strong predictive relations between student predictors of syntactic and vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension may be moderated by some aspects of item and task demands. However, for this large-scale, multiple choice assessment of reading comprehension, variability in items and passages was largely unexplained. Results are discussed in the context of theoretical accounts of reading comprehension, from which the item and passage predictors are derived. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication Science and Disorders in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2017. / July 26, 2017. / Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading, grade three, item response modeling, multilevel modeling, reader-text interactions, reading comprehension / Includes bibliographical references. / Hugh W. Catts, Professor Directing Dissertation; Christopher Schatschneider, University Representative; Carla Wood, Committee Member; Donald Compton, Committee Member.

Many persons with aphasia (PWA), who have trouble communicating after a stroke, have difficulty naming objects, frequently producing speech errors. Picture (confrontation) naming tasks are commonly used to assess the presence and/or severity of naming difficulties, but these tests do not adequately capture the underlying cause of impairment. This project addresses the limitations of the standard picture naming paradigm by incorporating the measurement of eye movements, thereby providing a precise estimate of participants’ visual attention during the task. While prior studies have measured eye movements to distractor pictures when a spoken word is presented, to our knowledge no eye tracking studies have examined picture naming with written distractors in aphasia. Using a novel approach, we measured PWA’s and healthy controls’ eye movements as they selected the correct written word corresponding to the picture over other related words (semantically and sound-based distractors). The results of this project seek to: (1) indicate the feasibility of a novel eye tracking paradigm to study both intact and impaired lexical retrieval; (2) provide detailed information about the nature and time course of impaired naming; and (3) yield insight into the relative preservation of semantic and phonological representations in aphasia.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-27T18:11:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silvia Daniella Guedes Ferraz.pdf: 417057 bytes, checksum: 5c74d5788d784dd76f8a65c843c14de8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-01-27 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The advance of clinical researches and experiences in treating children with disabilities points to the need of development of therapeutic projects which promote the integration of different professional views on the cases. From clinical experiences and reflections the cotherapy was thought, in the present research, as a device to serve this population through the joint action of speech therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. The purpose of this investigation was to map such cotherapy experiences in order to analyze potential and limits of this device. To this end, we carried out the mapping and analysis of the clinical trials proposed in two cases: a seven-year-old with Down syndrome, and another four-year old one with cerebral palsy. The cartography was constructed from actual experiences with patients, scores made by their parents, and perceptions recorded by the professionals involved in the experiment. These processes of cotherapy have been well evaluated by the families as well as the patients. Some conditions of possibility were highlighted on them: the care and attention to the setting which this type of meeting requires and produce; multiple and singular composition of the therapeutic relationships, and articulation among the therapists. Considering the need for training of professionals and the care in the management of the work processes, the cotherapy proved to be an effective tool in the treatment of disabled children, promoting integrated vision, construction of more comprehensive clinical listening, and the elaboration of interdisciplinary singular therapeutic projects. It also collaborated with the expansion of capacity to meet the specific needs of each case investigated. It was also possible to note that the disciplinary backgrounds of the professionals had to be open to the reinvention of values and positions, based on how the knowledge of a discipline affected and was affected by the others. Taking into account and being submitted to such intersections this clinical practice can be considered inventive, creative / O avanço das experiências e pesquisas clínicas no atendimento a crianças com deficiências aponta para necessidade de construção de projetos terapêuticos que favoreçam a integração de diferentes olhares profissionais. A partir de experiências e reflexões clínicas, a coterapia foi pensada, na presente pesquisa, como dispositivo de atendimento a essa população, por meio da ação conjunta da fonoaudiologia, fisioterapia e terapia ocupacional. O objetivo da investigação foi cartografar tais experiências em coterapia, de modo a analisar potencialidades e limites desse dispositivo clínico. Para tanto, realizou-se o mapeamento e a análise dos arranjos clínico-terapêuticos propostos em dois casos: uma menina de 7 anos de idade, com Síndrome de Down, e outra de 4 anos, com paralisia cerebral. A cartografia foi construída a partir de situações vividas com os pacientes; de pontuações realizadas por seus pais; e por registros das percepções dos profissionais envolvidos na experiência. Esses processos de coterapia foram bem avaliadas pelas famílias e também pelas pacientes. Neles se destacaram algumas condições de possibilidade: atenção e cuidado com o setting que este tipo de encontro exige e produz; composição singular e múltipla das relações terapêuticas; e articulação entre os terapeutas. Considerando a necessidade de preparação dos profissionais e os cuidados no manejo dos processos de trabalho, a coterapia se mostrou dispositivo efetivo na terapia de crianças com deficiências, favorecendo visão integrada; construção de escuta clínica mais abrangente; e elaboração de projetos terapêuticos singulares interdisciplinares. Colaborou também com a ampliação da capacidade de responder às necessidades específicas de cada caso pesquisado. Foi possível verificar ainda que a formação disciplinar dos profissionais precisou se abrir à reinvenção de posições e valores, a partir dos modos como saberes de uma disciplina afetaram e foram afetados pelos das outras. Esta prática clínica, ao considerar e se dispor a tais intersecções, pode ser considerada inventiva, criativa

This study explored the skill sets possessed by speech-language pathologists working with profoundly deaf children in three types of settings (state-funded "4201" schools for the deaf, Board of Cooperative Educational Services programs, and local school districts) throughout New York State. The phenomenological method of inquiry was utilized to investigate these skill sets within the varying contexts of speech pathologists' work environments and the deaf students within those settings. Fourteen speech-language pathologists were interviewed for this study; data was triangulated by the collection of responses to case studies and field notes. When possible, supervisors of participants were interviewed as well. Results demonstrated that speech pathologists working with the deaf population possess numerous specialized skills, to varying degrees, depending on the context within which they practice. Findings have implications both for clinical preparation and practice, as well as for education planning and policy in New York State.

Speech perception is a unique audiovisual experience in part because timing of the speech signal is influenced by simultaneous overlapping gestures in coarticulation. Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a motor planning disorder that impairs coarticulation. Imaging studies show that brain regions damaged in AOS are critical to audiovisual speech perception. Although AOS is a motor planning disorder, individuals with AOS may have a disruption to the perceptual system for speech gestures. To evaluate this hypothesis we investigated audiovisual mismatch negativity (MMN) brain responses in adults with damage to Broca’s area (n =5) compared to a healthy age-matched comparison group (n = 5). We utilized the McGurk effect, in which incongruent auditory and visual information alters perception. Participants viewed videos of a speaker articulating the syllable /ba/ (standard) for 80% trials and /ga/ (deviant) for 20% of the trials while the auditory stimulus /ba/ remained consistent throughout. Responses to this McGurk audiovisual condition were compared to an inverse McGurk audiovisual condition in which the visual stimulus remained constant while the auditory stimulus changed, and a visual-only condition without sound to control for evoked activity from changes to the visual stimulus. Incongruent McGurk deviants elicited an MMN over left hemisphere electrodes in the comparison group, while the AOS group exhibited a later, attention-based response, a P300. The AOS group similarly responded to inverse McGurk deviants, which do not require fusion of the percept, with a P300 response, indicating that auditory and visual aspects of the incongruent McGurk deviants were not integrated. In the visual-only control condition, the AOS group showed a left-lateralized MMN, suggesting greater influence of visual processing when confronted with conflicting multisensory information compared to the comparison group. Overall, the comparison group’s responses were indicative of early and automatic audiovisual integration of incongruent McGurk percepts while the responses of the AOS group showed contributions of both attentional and visual processing. The timing of the response in the AOS group was correlated with speech production characteristics of apraxia, as well as performance on taxing motor speech tasks. Results of this study support the hypothesis that AOS is a disorder beyond motor planning, with implications for higher-level linguistic and cognitive systems.

Many models of reading include cognitive components such as memory and attention in addition to the linguistic processing aspects; however, the particular effects of these other resources have yet to be clearly defined. The current study seeks to look at the effects of attentional resource manipulation on the reading process through the use of comic viewing, auditory distraction and dual-task paradigms. The study uses both behavioral measures (comprehension question performance) and eye-tracking measures (fixation time, revisits) to investigate the effects of increased cognitive load on the reading process in healthy, literate adults. The study found that healthy adults used the presence of comics to attenuate the effects of distraction and increased cognitive load on the comprehension process. Without the additional visual information of the comics, the participants showed a significant increase in the number of attempts to reread material (i.e. revisits) due to the distractor/dual-task presentation while still exhibiting notable decreases in comprehension. Furthermore, additional correlations were found between several cognitive testing measures and the participants’ performances in both the comprehension and eye-tracking measures across conditions. The results of this study provide valuable insight into future stages of this study, informing further research with both healthy adults and clinical populations such as people with aphasia or traumatic brain injuries.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a newly adapted treatment, Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written, to improve microlinguistic and macrolinguistic aspects of written and spoken discourse of people with mild aphasia. Background: Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written takes a top-down approach to language rehabilitation that focuses on the cognitive-linguistic processes required for spoken and written discourse production. Methods: Five people with mild aphasia received Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written across two single subject experimentally controlled pre-post treatment design studies. Results: All participants demonstrated improvement in both written and spoken discourse generalization measures. Improvement in functional communication, and confrontation naming was also observed for some participants. Conclusions: The results reported in these two studies provide preliminary evidence that Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written is a viable treatment option to improve both written and spoken discourse in people with mild aphasia. Participants demonstrated different pre-treatment profiles and mechanisms of improvement, which are discussed.

Hypokinetic dysarthria is a speech disorder that commonly occurs in individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, little is known about the speech characteristics and the effects of speech treatment on the speech of Mandarin speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria (henceforth, Mandarin speakers with PD). The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the effects of intensive voice treatment on the speech intelligibility and acoustics of this population. This dissertation consisted of three papers. The first paper, “Acoustic and perceptual speech characteristics of native Mandarin speakers with Parkinson’s disease,” investigated the general speech characteristics of 11 Mandarin speakers with PD. Intelligibility and acoustic outcomes were reported and compared to seven age- and gender-matched neurologically healthy controls. Findings from this study showed that Mandarin speakers with PD exhibited decreased intelligibility, local pitch variation, vowel space area, speech rate, and rate variation. The second paper, “Effects of Loudness and Rate Manipulation Strategies on Speech Intelligibility and Acoustics of Mandarin Speakers With Parkinson’s Disease,” examined the effects of cueing to increase loudness and reduce speech rate on speech intelligibility and acoustics. Acoustic features including speech intensity, pitch range, pause duration, pause frequency, articulation rate, and vowel space area across 11 Mandarin speakers with PD were analyzed. The relationship between speech intelligibility and acoustic features was reported. Results showed that cueing for loud speech significantly increased intelligibility, but cueing for slow speech did not. Different cues had differential effects on the selected acoustic features. Cueing for loud speech resulted in increased vocal intensity and cueing for slow speech resulted in reduced articulation rate and increased pause frequency. In the loud speaking condition, greater vocal intensity and larger vowel space contributed to increased intelligibility, whereas in the slow condition, increased intensity, vowel space, as well as articulation rate, showed a trend toward contributing to increased intelligibility. The third paper, “The Effects of Intensive Voice Treatment on Intelligibility in Mandarin Speakers with Parkinson’s Disease: Acoustic and perceptual findings,” investigated the short- and long-term effects of intensive voice treatment (Lee Silverman Voice Treatment LOUD) on speech intelligibility and acoustics of nine Mandarin speakers with PD. All speakers showed increased intelligibility from pretreatment to immediate post-treatment, and the improvement was maintained at the 6-month follow-up. Five acoustic features were analyzed. Speech intensity, vowel space, and speech rate changed significantly in positive directions immediately post-treatment, and the increases were retained up to six months. Global pitch variation increased immediately post-treatment but not at the 6-month follow-up. No changes were found in local pitch variation following treatment. Self-reported intelligibility, voice quality, confidence, frustration level, and communicative participation changed positively immediately after the completion of treatment and at the 6-month follow-up. To conclude, the speech characteristics of Mandarin speakers with PD were generally consistent with those of English speakers with PD, except that speech was slower in the Mandarin speakers. Cueing to increase loudness and reduce rate had different effects on speech intelligibility and production, with louder speech yielding greater intelligibility and acoustic benefits. Following intensive voice treatment (LSVT LOUD), Mandarin speakers with PD increased their vocal intensity. Speech intelligibility, vowel space, global pitch variation and speech rate increased as a result of the treatment. Thus, some differences between Mandarin and English dysarthria and effects of cueing might be present, but as for English speakers, intensive treatment (specifically LSVT LOUD) focusing on increasing vocal intensity shows promise for increasing intelligibility and quality of life in Mandarin speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria. Future studies should include a larger number of participants and probe the effects of behavioral speech modifications and intensive voice treatment on lexical tone, and consider which physiological mechanisms might be associated with production of lexical tone, given that lexical tone is often crucial to differentiating word meaning in Mandarin.