Matching Items (7)
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- All Subjects: Speech therapy
- Creators: Dorman, Michael
- Creators: Daliri, Ayoub
- Status: Published
Description
A multitude of individuals across the globe suffer from hearing loss and that number continues to grow. Cochlear implants, while having limitations, provide electrical input for users enabling them to "hear" and more fully interact socially with their environment. There has been a clinical shift to the bilateral placement of implants in both ears and to bimodal placement of a hearing aid in the contralateral ear if residual hearing is present. However, there is potentially more to subsequent speech perception for bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant users than the electric and acoustic input being received via these modalities. For normal listeners vision plays a role and Rosenblum (2005) points out it is a key feature of an integrated perceptual process. Logically, cochlear implant users should also benefit from integrated visual input. The question is how exactly does vision provide benefit to bilateral and bimodal users. Eight (8) bilateral and 5 bimodal participants received randomized experimental phrases previously generated by Liss et al. (1998) in auditory and audiovisual conditions. The participants recorded their perception of the input. Data were consequently analyzed for percent words correct, consonant errors, and lexical boundary error types. Overall, vision was found to improve speech perception for bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant participants. Each group experienced a significant increase in percent words correct when visual input was added. With vision bilateral participants reduced consonant place errors and demonstrated increased use of syllabic stress cues used in lexical segmentation. Therefore, results suggest vision might provide perceptual benefits for bilateral cochlear implant users by granting access to place information and by augmenting cues for syllabic stress in the absence of acoustic input. On the other hand vision did not provide the bimodal participants significantly increased access to place and stress cues. Therefore the exact mechanism by which bimodal implant users improved speech perception with the addition of vision is unknown. These results point to the complexities of audiovisual integration during speech perception and the need for continued research regarding the benefit vision provides to bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant users.
ContributorsLudwig, Cimarron (Author) / Liss, Julie (Thesis advisor) / Dorman, Michael (Committee member) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In this study, the Bark transform and Lobanov method were used to normalize vowel formants in speech produced by persons with dysarthria. The computer classification accuracy of these normalized data were then compared to the results of human perceptual classification accuracy of the actual vowels. These results were then analyzed to determine if these techniques correlated with the human data.
ContributorsJones, Hanna Vanessa (Author) / Liss, Julie (Thesis director) / Dorman, Michael (Committee member) / Borrie, Stephanie (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
Pitch and timbre perception are two important dimensions of auditory perception. These aspects of sound aid the understanding of our environment, and contribute to normal everyday functioning. It is therefore important to determine the nature of perceptual interaction between these two dimensions of sound. This study tested the interactions between pitch perception associated with the fundamental frequency (F0) and sharpness perception associated with the spectral slope of harmonic complex tones in normal hearing (NH) listeners and cochlear implant (CI) users. Pitch and sharpness ranking was measured without changes in the non-target dimension (Experiment 1), with different amounts of unrelated changes in the non-target dimension (Experiment 2), and with congruent/incongruent changes of similar perceptual salience in the non-target dimension (Experiment 3). The results showed that CI users had significantly worse pitch and sharpness ranking thresholds than NH listeners. Pitch and sharpness perception had symmetric interactions in NH listeners. However, for CI users, spectral slope changes significantly affected pitch ranking, while F0 changes had no significant effect on sharpness ranking. CI users' pitch ranking sensitivity was significantly better with congruent than with incongruent spectral slope changes. These results have important implications for CI processing strategies to better transmit pitch and timbre cues to CI users.
ContributorsSoslowsky, Samara Miranda (Author) / Luo, Xin (Thesis director) / Yost, William (Committee member) / Dorman, Michael (Committee member) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Children with hearing impairment are at risk for poor attainment in reading decoding and reading comprehension, which suggests they may have difficulty with early literacy skills prior to learning to read. The first purpose of this study was to determine if young children with hearing impairment differ from their peers with normal hearing on early literacy skills and also on three known predictors of early literacy skills – non-verbal cognition, executive functioning, and home literacy environment. A second purpose was to determine if strengths and weaknesses in early literacy skills of individual children with hearing impairment are associated with degree of hearing loss, non-verbal cognitive ability, or executive functioning.
I assessed seven children with normal hearing and 10 children with hearing impairment on assessments of expressive vocabulary, expressive morphosyntax, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, non-verbal cognition, and executive functioning. Two children had unilateral hearing loss, two had mild hearing loss and used hearing aids, two had moderate hearing loss and used hearing aids, one child had mild hearing loss and did not use hearing aids, and three children used bilateral cochlear implants. Parents completed a questionnaire about their home literacy environment.
Findings showed large between-group effect sizes for phonological awareness, morphosyntax, and executive functioning, and medium between-group effect sizes for expressive vocabulary, listening comprehension, and non-verbal cognition. Visual analyses provided no clear pattern to suggest that non-verbal cognition or degree of hearing loss were associated with individual patterns of performance for children with hearing impairment; however, three children who seemed at risk for reading difficulties had executive functioning scores that were at the floor.
Most prekindergarten and kindergarten children with hearing impairment in this study appeared to be at risk for future reading decoding and reading comprehension difficulties. Further, based on individual patterns of performance, risk was not restricted to one type of early literacy skill and a strength in one skill did not necessarily indicate a child would have strengths in all early literacy skills. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate all early literacy skills to pinpoint skill deficits and to prioritize intervention goals.
I assessed seven children with normal hearing and 10 children with hearing impairment on assessments of expressive vocabulary, expressive morphosyntax, listening comprehension, phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, non-verbal cognition, and executive functioning. Two children had unilateral hearing loss, two had mild hearing loss and used hearing aids, two had moderate hearing loss and used hearing aids, one child had mild hearing loss and did not use hearing aids, and three children used bilateral cochlear implants. Parents completed a questionnaire about their home literacy environment.
Findings showed large between-group effect sizes for phonological awareness, morphosyntax, and executive functioning, and medium between-group effect sizes for expressive vocabulary, listening comprehension, and non-verbal cognition. Visual analyses provided no clear pattern to suggest that non-verbal cognition or degree of hearing loss were associated with individual patterns of performance for children with hearing impairment; however, three children who seemed at risk for reading difficulties had executive functioning scores that were at the floor.
Most prekindergarten and kindergarten children with hearing impairment in this study appeared to be at risk for future reading decoding and reading comprehension difficulties. Further, based on individual patterns of performance, risk was not restricted to one type of early literacy skill and a strength in one skill did not necessarily indicate a child would have strengths in all early literacy skills. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate all early literacy skills to pinpoint skill deficits and to prioritize intervention goals.
ContributorsRunnion, Elizabeth (Author) / Gray, Shelley (Thesis advisor) / Dorman, Michael (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The brain uses the somatosensory system to interact with the environment and control movements. Additionally, many movement disorders are associated with deficits in the somatosensory sensory system. Thus, understanding the somatosensory system is essential for developing treatments for movement disorders. Previous studies have extensively examined the role of the somatosensory system in controlling the lower and upper extremities; however, little is known about the contributions of the orofacial somatosensory system. The overall goal of this study was to determine factors that influence the sensitivity of the orofacial somatosensory system. To measure the somatosensory system's sensitivity, transcutaneous electrical current stimulation was applied to the skin overlaying the trigeminal nerve on the lower portion of the face. After applying stimulation, participants' sensitivity was determined through the detection of the electrical stimuli (i.e., perceptual threshold). The data analysis focused on the impact of (1) stimulation parameters, (2) electrode placement, and (3) motor tasks on the perceptual threshold. The results showed that, as expected, stimulation parameters (such as stimulation frequency and duration) influenced perceptual thresholds. However, electrode placement (left vs. right side of the face) and motor tasks (lip contraction vs. rest) did not influence perceptual thresholds. Overall, these findings have important implications for designing and developing therapeutic neuromodulation techniques based on trigeminal nerve stimulation.
ContributorsKhoury, Maya Elie (Author) / Daliri, Ayoub (Thesis advisor) / Patten, Jake (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability in the U.S., with up to 60% of strokescausing speech loss. Individuals with severe stroke, who require the most frequent, intense speech therapy, often cannot adhere to treatments due to high cost and low success rates. Therefore, the ability to make functionally significant changes in individuals with severe post- stroke aphasia remains a key challenge for the rehabilitation community. This dissertation aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Startle Adjuvant Rehabilitation Therapy (START), a tele-enabled, low- cost treatment, to improve quality of life and speech in individuals with severe-to-moderate stroke. START is the exposure to startling acoustic stimuli during practice of motor tasks in individuals with stroke. START increases the speed and intensity of practice in severely impaired post-stroke reaching, with START eliciting muscle activity 2-3 times higher than maximum voluntary contraction. Voluntary reaching distance, onset, and final accuracy increased after a session of START, suggesting a rehabilitative effect. However, START has not been evaluated during impaired speech. The objective of this study is to determine if impaired speech can be elicited by startling acoustic stimuli, and if three days of START training can enhance clinical measures of moderate to severe post-stroke aphasia and apraxia of speech. This dissertation evaluates START in 42 individuals with post-stroke speech impairment via telehealth in a Phase 0 clinical trial. Results suggest that impaired speech can be elicited by startling acoustic stimuli and that START benefits individuals with severe-to-moderate post-stroke impairments in both linguistic and motor speech domains. This fills an important gap in aphasia care, as many speech therapies remain ineffective and financially inaccessible for patients with severe deficits. START is effective, remotely delivered, and may likely serve as an affordable adjuvant to traditional therapy for those that have poor access to quality care.
ContributorsSwann, Zoe Elisabeth (Author) / Honeycutt, Claire F (Thesis advisor) / Daliri, Ayoub (Committee member) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Schaefer, Sydney (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Speech sound disorders (SSDs) are the most prevalent type of communication disorder in children. Clinically, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) rely on behavioral methods for assessing and treating SSDs. Though clients typically experience improved speech outcomes as a result of therapy, there is evidence that underlying deficits may persist even in individuals who have completed treatment for surface-level speech behaviors. Advances in the field of genetics have created the opportunity to investigate the contribution of genes to human communication. Due to the heterogeneity of many communication disorders, the manner in which specific genetic changes influence neural mechanisms, and thereby behavioral phenotypes, remains largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to identify genotype-phenotype associations, along with perceptual, and motor-related biomarkers within families displaying SSDs. Five parent-child trios participated in genetic testing, and five families participated in a combination of genetic and behavioral testing to help elucidate biomarkers related to SSDs. All of the affected individuals had a history of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) except for one family that displayed a phonological disorder. Genetic investigation yielded several genes of interest relevant for an SSD phenotype: CNTNAP2, CYFIP1, GPR56, HERC1, KIAA0556, LAMA5, LAMB1, MDGA2, MECP2, NBEA, SHANK3, TENM3, and ZNF142. All of these genes showed at least some expression in the developing brain. Gene ontology analysis yielded terms supporting a genetic influence on central nervous system development. Behavioral testing revealed evidence of a sequential processing biomarker for all individuals with CAS, with many showing deficits in sequential motor skills in addition to speech deficits. In some families, participants also showed evidence of a co-occurring perceptual processing biomarker. The family displaying a phonological phenotype showed milder sequential processing deficits compared to CAS families. Overall, this study supports the presence of a sequential processing biomarker for CAS and shows that relevant genes of interest may be influencing a CAS phenotype via sequential processing. Knowledge of these biomarkers can help strengthen precision of clinical assessment and motivate development of novel interventions for individuals with SSDs.
ContributorsBruce, Laurel (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis advisor) / Daliri, Ayoub (Committee member) / Liu, Li (Committee member) / Scherer, Nancy (Committee member) / Weinhold, Juliet (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020