Matching Items (14)
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- All Subjects: Speech therapy
- Creators: Gray, Shelley
- Creators: Dixon, Maria
- Resource Type: Text
Description
Frequency effects favoring high print-frequency words have been observed in frequency judgment memory tasks. Healthy young adults performed frequency judgment tasks; one group performed a single task while another group did the same task while alternating their attention to a secondary task (mathematical equations). Performance was assessed by correct and error responses, reaction times, and accuracy. Accuracy and reaction times were analyzed in terms of memory load (task condition), number of repetitions, effect of high vs. low print-frequency, and correlations with working memory span. Multinomial tree analyses were also completed to investigate source vs. item memory and revealed a mirror effect in episodic memory experiments (source memory), but a frequency advantage in span tasks (item memory). Interestingly enough, we did not observe an advantage for high working memory span individuals in frequency judgments, even when participants split their attention during the dual task (similar to a complex span task). However, we concluded that both the amount of attentional resources allocated and prior experience with an item affect how it is stored in memory.
ContributorsPeterson, Megan Paige (Author) / Azuma, Tamiko (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Everyday speech communication typically takes place face-to-face. Accordingly, the task of perceiving speech is a multisensory phenomenon involving both auditory and visual information. The current investigation examines how visual information influences recognition of dysarthric speech. It also explores where the influence of visual information is dependent upon age. Forty adults participated in the study that measured intelligibility (percent words correct) of dysarthric speech in auditory versus audiovisual conditions. Participants were then separated into two groups: older adults (age range 47 to 68) and young adults (age range 19 to 36) to examine the influence of age. Findings revealed that all participants, regardless of age, improved their ability to recognize dysarthric speech when visual speech was added to the auditory signal. The magnitude of this benefit, however, was greater for older adults when compared with younger adults. These results inform our understanding of how visual speech information influences understanding of dysarthric speech.
ContributorsFall, Elizabeth (Author) / Liss, Julie (Thesis advisor) / Berisha, Visar (Committee member) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Language and music are fundamentally entwined within human culture. The two domains share similar properties including rhythm, acoustic complexity, and hierarchical structure. Although language and music have commonalities, abilities in these two domains have been found to dissociate after brain damage, leaving unanswered questions about their interconnectedness, including can one domain support the other when damage occurs? Evidence supporting this question exists for speech production. Musical pitch and rhythm are employed in Melodic Intonation Therapy to improve expressive language recovery, but little is known about the effects of music on the recovery of speech perception and receptive language. This research is one of the first to address the effects of music on speech perception. Two groups of participants, an older adult group (n=24; M = 71.63 yrs) and a younger adult group (n=50; M = 21.88 yrs) took part in the study. A native female speaker of Standard American English created four different types of stimuli including pseudoword sentences of normal speech, simultaneous music-speech, rhythmic speech, and music-primed speech. The stimuli were presented binaurally and participants were instructed to repeat what they heard following a 15 second time delay. Results were analyzed using standard parametric techniques. It was found that musical priming of speech, but not simultaneous synchronized music and speech, facilitated speech perception in both the younger adult and older adult groups. This effect may be driven by rhythmic information. The younger adults outperformed the older adults in all conditions. The speech perception task relied heavily on working memory, and there is a known working memory decline associated with aging. Thus, participants completed a working memory task to be used as a covariate in analyses of differences across stimulus types and age groups. Working memory ability was found to correlate with speech perception performance, but that the age-related performance differences are still significant once working memory differences are taken into account. These results provide new avenues for facilitating speech perception in stroke patients and sheds light upon the underlying mechanisms of Melodic Intonation Therapy for speech production.
ContributorsLaCroix, Arianna (Author) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The current study employs item difficulty modeling procedures to evaluate the feasibility of potential generative item features for nonword repetition. Specifically, the extent to which the manipulated item features affect the theoretical mechanisms that underlie nonword repetition accuracy was estimated. Generative item features were based on the phonological loop component of Baddelely's model of working memory which addresses phonological short-term memory (Baddeley, 2000, 2003; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Using researcher developed software, nonwords were generated to adhere to the phonological constraints of Spanish. Thirty-six nonwords were chosen based on the set item features identified by the proposed cognitive processing model. Using a planned missing data design, two-hundred fifteen Spanish-English bilingual children were administered 24 of the 36 generated nonwords. Multiple regression and explanatory item response modeling techniques (e.g., linear logistic test model, LLTM; Fischer, 1973) were used to estimate the impact of item features on item difficulty. The final LLTM included three item radicals and two item incidentals. Results indicated that the LLTM predicted item difficulties were highly correlated with the Rasch item difficulties (r = .89) and accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in item difficulty (R2 = .79). The findings are discussed in terms of validity evidence in support of using the phonological loop component of Baddeley's model (2000) as a cognitive processing model for nonword repetition items and the feasibility of using the proposed radical structure as an item blueprint for the future generation of nonword repetition items.
ContributorsMorgan, Gareth Philip (Author) / Gorin, Joanna (Thesis advisor) / Levy, Roy (Committee member) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Identification of primary language impairment (PLI) in sequential bilingual children is challenging because of the interaction between PLI and second language (L2) proficiency. An important step in improving the accurate diagnosis of PLI in bilingual children is to investigate how differences in L2 performance are affected by a length of L2 exposure and how L2 assessment contributes to differentiation between children with and without PLI at different L2 proficiency levels. Sixty one children with typical language development (TD) ages 5;3-8 years and 12 children with PLI ages 5;5-7;8 years participated. Results revealed that bilingual children with and without PLI, who had between 1 and 3 years of L2 exposure, did not differ in mean length of utterance (MLU), number of different words, percent of maze words, and performance on expressive and receptive grammatical tasks in L2. Performance on a grammaticality judgment task by children with and without PLI demonstrated the largest effect size, indicating that it may potentially contribute to identification of PLI in bilingual populations. In addition, children with PLI did not demonstrate any association between the length of exposure and L2 proficiency, suggesting that they do not develop their L2 proficiency in relation to length of exposure in the same manner as children with TD. Results also indicated that comprehension of grammatical structures and expressive grammatical task in L2 may contribute to differentiation between the language ability groups at the low and intermediate-high proficiency levels. The discriminant analysis with the entire sample of bilingual children with and without PLI revealed that among L2 measures, only MLU contributed to the discrimination between the language ability groups. However, poor classification accuracy suggested that MLU alone is not a sufficient predictor of PLI. There were significant differences among L2 proficiency levels in children with TD in MLU, number of different words, and performance on the expressive and receptive grammatical tasks in L2, indicating that L2 proficiency level may potentially impact the differentiation between language difficulties due to typical L2 acquisition processes and PLI.
ContributorsSmyk, Ekaterina (Author) / Restrepo, Maria Adelaida (Thesis advisor) / Gorin, Joanna (Committee member) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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
A substantial amount of research demonstrates that preschoolers' phonological awareness skills are a robust predictor of children's later decoding ability. Several investigators examined performance of children with speech sound impairment (SSI), defined as inaccurate production of speech sounds in the absence of any etiology or communication impairment, on phonological awareness tasks. Investigators found that children with SSI scored below their typically developing peers (TD) on phonological awareness tasks. In contrast, others found no differences between groups. It seems likely that differences in findings regarding phonological awareness skills among children with SSI is the fact that there is considerable heterogeneity among children with SSI (i.e., speech errors can either be a phonological or articulation). Phonology is one component of a child's language system and a phonological impairment (SSI-PI) is evident when patterns of deviations of speech sounds are exhibited in a language system. Children with an articulation impairment (SSI-AI) produce speech sound errors that are affected by the movements of the articulators, not sound patterns. The purpose of the study was to examine whether or not children with SSI-PI are at greater risk for acquiring phonological awareness skills than children with SSI-AI. Furthermore, the phonological awareness skills of children with SSI-PI and SSI-AI were compared to those of their typical peers. In addition, the role of executive function as well as the influence of phonological working memory on phonological awareness task performance was examined.
Findings indicate that the SSI-PI group performed more poorly on an assessment of phonological awareness skills than the SSI-AI and TD groups. The SSI-PI group performed significantly more poorly on tasks of executive function and phonological working memory than the TD group. The results of this study support the hypothesis that children with SSI-PI may be more vulnerable to difficulties in reading than children with SSI-AI and children with TD.
Findings indicate that the SSI-PI group performed more poorly on an assessment of phonological awareness skills than the SSI-AI and TD groups. The SSI-PI group performed significantly more poorly on tasks of executive function and phonological working memory than the TD group. The results of this study support the hypothesis that children with SSI-PI may be more vulnerable to difficulties in reading than children with SSI-AI and children with TD.
ContributorsFox, Angela Marie (Author) / Wilcox, M. Jeanne (Thesis advisor) / Ingram, David (Committee member) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Connor, Carol (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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
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
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are known to show impairments in various domains of executive function (EF) such as behavioral flexibility or inhibitory control. Research suggests that EF impairment in adults with ASD may relate to ASD core symptoms, restrictive behaviors and social communication deficits. Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has shown promise for improving EF abilities in neurotypical adults, but research has not explored its efficacy or neural mechanisms in adults with ASD. This pilot study examines the effects of an 8-week MBSR intervention on self-report measures of EF and resting-state functional connectivity in a sample of adults with ASD. Fifty-four participants were assigned either to an MBSR group (n = 29) or a social support group (n = 25). Executive function was measured using the BRIEF-2 before and after the intervention for the twenty-seven participants in the second cohort. MBSR-specific improvements in EF were found for BRIEF measures of initiation, inhibition, and working-memory. Resting-state fMRI data was analyzed using independent component analysis (ICA), and group by time resting-state functional connectivity differences were observed between the cerebellar network and frontal regions including the right frontal pole (rFP), medial frontal cortex (MFC) and left and right superior frontal gyri (SFG). The MBSR group showed increases in functional connectivity between the cerebellum and EF regions which correlated with improvements in BRIEF-2 measures. These findings suggest that MBSR may improve EF domains in adults with ASD, and that increases in functional connectivity between the cerebellum and frontal regions while at rest may be a mechanism for such improvements.
ContributorsGuerithault, Nicolas (Author) / Braden, B. Blair (Thesis advisor) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Committee member) / Dixon, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021