The purpose of this investigation was to determine if children labeled as “severe” functional articulation disordered, who had been enrolled in public school speech programs for one year or more, exhibited dyspraxic-like characteristics.
Twenty individuals between the ages of 8 and 11 were chosen from the Gresham Public Schools, Lynch Public Schools, Portland Public Schools, Rockwood Public Schools and the Crippled Children’s Division, University of Oregon Medical School to serve as subjects for the three groups in this study. Eight subjects who comprised the experimental group were 11 severe11 functional articulation disorders and were selected from the public schools. Each misarticulated four or more phonemes, consistently or inconsistently, in isolation, syllables, words or conversation; each had made little or very slow progress according to his speech clinician and each had been enrolled in speech management for one year or more as a functional articulation case.
Eight subjects in the normal control group were individuals selected from the public schools, with no speech or language problems. Each had never been enrolled in nor recommended for a speech intervention program.
Four subjects in the dyspraxic control group were selected from the University of Oregon Medical School. Prior to the date of this investigation, each had been diagnosed as displaying developmental dyspraxia, dyspraxia of speech or verbal dyspraxia.
The Modified Apraxia Battery (NAB) utilized in this investigation was a nonstandardized battery consisting of a verbal section and a nonverbal section. The verbal section was composed of ten subtests designed to delineate the presence of a dyspraxia of speech; the nonverbal section was composed of one subtest designed to delineate an oral apraxia and one subtest designed to delineate a limb apraxia.
The results of this study revealed a highly significant difference in performance on the verbal section between the normal subjects and the “severe” functional articulation subjects with the normals performing better. A highly significant difference also was found between the normal subjects and the dyspraxic subjects with the normals performing better on the verbal section of the MAB. No significant difference was revealed, however, between the dyspraxics and the “severe” functional articulation cases. It was inferred, therefore, that these two groups performed in a similar manner because they exhibited similar verbal characteristics. “Severe” functional articulation disordered subjects were, therefore, found to exhibit verbal dyspraxic-like characteristics.
No significant difference in performance was shown on the nonverbal section among the three groups.
It appears the verbal section of the Modified Apraxia Battery much more effectively differentiates those displaying dyspraxic-like characteristics from those who do not than does the nonverbal section. Chi square analysis of items on the NAB supported this contention further suggesting subsection 3, Multisyllabic Words and subsection 6, Sentences are the most discriminating verbal items.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-3282 |
| Date | 01 January 1975 |
| Creators | Mitcham, Sara Miller |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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