Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- Creators: Benitez, Viridiana
Description
The ability to regulate emotions, attention, and behavior develops early in life and impacts future academic success, social competency, behavioral problems, and psychopathology. An impairment in regulation is known as dysregulation. Past research shows that children of mothers with postpartum depression are more likely to show impairment in regulatory abilities. There is an established link in the literature between family support and maternal depression, which in turn can impact child behavior. However, further research is needed to explore the impact of family support on early childhood dysregulation in the context of maternal depression. Using a sample of 322 Mexican-American, mother-child dyads, two models were examined. Model one hypothesized family support would buffer the effects of maternal depression on child dysregulation at 24 months. Model 2 hypothesized that family support is related to child dysregulation through its effect on maternal depression. Results showed that increased family support was related to more child dysregulation when there were high levels of maternal depression. There was no evidence to support the hypothesis that maternal depression mediated the relationship between family support and child dysregulation.
ContributorsRodrigues, Samantha Jean (Author) / Luecken, Linda (Thesis director) / Benitez, Viridiana (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
The goal of this study was to examine whether there is any effect of phonotactic probability during the early phases of novel word recognition. In order to determine this, I performed two experiments. In Experiment 1, 33 adult monolingual English speakers learned 24 novel word-object pairings, half of which were high English phonotactic probability words and the other half were low English phonotactic probability words. I additionally included three conditions that varied the amount of exposures to each novel word-object pairing (i.e. One Exposure Condition, Two Exposures Conditions, and Five Exposures Condition). Experiment 2 was designed to clarify results found in Experiment 1, with improved randomization and fewer conditions (i.e. One Exposure Condition and Five Exposures Condition). The findings from both experiments were statistically significant in accuracy for Training condition, but not statistically significant for phonotactic probability nor for an interaction between phonotactic probability and Training condition. Although participants demonstrated learning across conditions there is no indication of a relationship between high and low phonotactic probability and novel word recognition. Collectively, these findings suggest that future studies will be necessary to determine if there is indeed an effect of phonotactic probability on early novel word recognition.
ContributorsQuinones, Sara Cristina (Co-author) / Quiñones, Sara (Co-author) / Benitez, Viridiana (Thesis director) / Tecedor Cabrero, Marta (Committee member) / Davis, Mary (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This thesis explores the interplay of aphasia symptoms and brain connectivityusing resting-state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The research presented here is a step towards understanding the neural basis of linguistic prosody in particular, and its relationship with language impairments in post-stroke aphasia. This study focuses on examining the functional connectivities of the frontal-parietal control network and the dorsal attention networks with specific regions within traditional language networks, as a growing body of research suggests that prosodic cues in speech may recruit control and attention networks to support language processing. Using resting- state fMRI, the present study examined the functional connectivity of the frontal parietal control and dorsal attention networks with traditional language regions in 28 participants who have experienced a stroke-related language impairment (i.e. aphasia) and 32 matched neurotypical adults. Overall, the study reveals significant functional connectivity differences of the frontoparietal control and dorsal attention networks between the stroke and control groups, indicating that individuals with aphasia have brain connectivity differences beyond the traditional language networks. Multiple regression analyses were then used to determine if functional connectivities of the frontoparietal control and dorsal attention networks within themselves and with traditional language regions could predict aphasia symptoms, as measured by the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB). Overall, the regression results indicate that greater functional connectivity between the frontoparietal control and dorsal attention networks with traditional language regions is associated with improved language abilities, with different connectivities predicting different types of aphasia symptoms (e.g. speech, naming / word finding, auditory comprehension, overall impairment). Altogether this study contributes to the understanding of the neural bases of language impairments post-stroke, highlighting the intricate connections between language and other cognitive networks, which may be mediated by prosody.
ContributorsMendhe, Surbhi Haridas (Author) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Thesis advisor) / Braden, B. Blair (Committee member) / Benitez, Viridiana (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024