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- Creators: Dixon, Maria
- Creators: College of Health Solutions
- Resource Type: Text
Description
With a growing number of adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), more and more research has been conducted on majority male cohorts with ASD from young, adolescence, and some older age. Currently, males make up the majority of individuals diagnosed with ASD, however, recent research states that the gender gap is closing due to more advanced screening and a better understanding of how females with ASD present their symptoms. Little research has been published on the neurocognitive differences that exist between older adults with ASD compared to neurotypical (NT) counterparts, and nothing has specifically addressed older women with ASD. This study utilized neuroimaging and neuropsychological tests to examine differences between diagnosis and sex of four distinct groups: older men with ASD, older women with ASD, older NT men, and older NT women. In each group, hippocampal size (via FreeSurfer) was analyzed for differences as well as correlations with neuropsychological tests. Participants (ASD Female, n = 12; NT Female, n = 14; ASD Male, n = 30; NT Male = 22), were similar according to age, IQ, and education. The results of the study indicated that the ASD Group as a whole performed worse on executive functioning tasks (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Trails Making Test) and memory-related tasks (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test, Weschler Memory Scale: Visual Reproduction) compared to the NT Group. Interactions of sex by diagnosis approached significance only within the WCST non-perseverative errors, with the women with ASD performing worse than NT women, but no group differences between men. Effect sizes between the female groups (ASD female vs. NT female) showed more than double that of the male groups (ASD male vs. NT male) for all WCST and AVLT measures. Participants with ASD had significantly smaller right hippocampal volumes than NT participants. In addition, all older women showed larger hippocampal volumes when corrected for total intracranial volume (TIV) compared to all older men. Overall, NT Females had significant correlations across all neuropsychological tests and their hippocampal volumes whereas no other group had significant correlations. These results suggest a tighter coupling between hippocampal size and cognition in NT Females than NT Males and both sexes with ASD. This study promotes further understanding of the neuropsychological differences between older men and women, both with and without ASD. Further research is needed on a larger sample of older women with and without ASD.
ContributorsWebb, Christen Len (Author) / Braden, B. Blair (Thesis advisor) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
In this pilot study, the purpose was to determine if certain language interventions could help bilingual children reduce maze use and improve their story retell abilities. We used language intervention, Story Champs, and its Spanish version, Puente de Cuentos to help bilingual children improve their story retell abilities. We conducted the intervention over the course of three days in both Spanish and English. The children participated in three stories in each language each day. They also received a narrative measure before and after the intervention to measure gains in story ability and to measure maze use. Results of the study indicated that there were no statistically-significant differences in the children's story retell abilities or maze use before and after the intervention. Nevertheless, we are encouraged by our results for future further study because of some improvements the children made.
ContributorsWhiteley, Aaron Kyle (Author) / Restrepo, Maria (Thesis director) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This pilot study evaluated whether Story Champs and Puente de Cuentos helped bilingual preschoolers increase their usage of emotional terms and ability to tell stories. Participants in this study included 10 Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers. Intervention was conducted in 9 sessions over 3 days using the Test of Narrative Retell to measure results. Results did not find significant gains in either emotional term usage or ability to tell stories, but the results were promising as a pilot study.
ContributorsSato, Leslie Mariko (Author) / Restrepo, Maria (Thesis director) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
Research regarding typical English language development in children who are bilingual is of interest for speech-language pathologists, but often this information is not available to them. As a result, many individuals find themselves believing false stereotypes about children who are bilingual, such as the idea that bilingualism causes developmental delay or disorders. For example, individuals do not realize the differences in past tense development for bilingual children versus monolingual children, a form that is often difficult for monolingual English-speaking children with developmental language delays. By focusing on a specific aspect of language development, such as English past tense acquisition of children who are bilingual, and observing changes in MLU and grammaticality that accompany acquisition, this study seeks to increase the existing knowledge on bilingualism and language development. Specifically, we will answer the following questions: a) At which grade level do Spanish-English bilingual children master English past tense after they enter English-only schooling in preschool? b) What types of errors do the children make with regular past tense? c) what types of errors do they make with irregular past tense? and d) What is the level of English grammaticality and MLUw at each grade level in English after children enter preschool? This study examined past-tense accuracy, MLU, and grammaticality development over a period of 5 years, in 13 children who were participants in a larger project called the Language and Reading Research Consortium (LARRC). Children were followed from preschool to third grade. They provided a yearly language sample by retelling one of the wordless Marianna Meyer and Mercer Meyer frog books, such as Frog on His Own or A Boy a Dog a Frog and a Friend. The language samples were then transcribed, coded, and analyzed using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software. Results indicate that children progressively improved over the years, with children reaching over 80% accuracy with past tense by year 3 or first grade; they demonstrated the most improvement in MLU between years 2 to 3 and years 3 to 4; and they showed a gradual improvement in grammaticality each year, with the exception of no increase between years 4 to 5. Findings from the study indicate that there is leveling in all three areas after 2nd grade. These results contribute to our understanding of normal English language development in bilingual children and may improve assessment when we evaluate their performance in English as a second language.
ContributorsEdem, Stephanie (Author) / Restrepo, M. Adelaida (Thesis director) / Weinhold, Juliet (Committee member) / Pierce, Melissa (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor, Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
Early identification of dyslexia is essential to providing children with the necessary services and support to succeed academically. Current dyslexia screening measures are not widely available for English-speaking monolingual children and those available for bilingual children are not widely used. To contribute to the effort to provide widely available screening for six-year-old English speaking and bilingual children, the ASU Bilingual Language and Literacy Lab, the Child Language and Literacy Lab, Learning to Soar Tutoring, Healing Hearts Pediatrics, and the Phoenix Children’s hospital have collaborated to develop the Dyslexia Screening Questionnaire (DysQ) that is offered in both English and Spanish. The goal of this study (Phase I) was to test the readability and comprehensibility of the DySQ to help ensure that it is accessible to a wide population of English and Spanish-speaking parents. In the second phase of the study, we aim to validate the DySQ by comparing the DySQ results with gold-standard testing for diagnosing dyslexia. The ultimate goal is to implement the DySQ into pediatric settings so that English and Spanish-speaking children may be screened for dyslexia at their 6-year-old well-child check-up.
ContributorsSwartz, Kathleen (Author) / Restrepo, Laida (Thesis director) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor)
Created2021-12