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- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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
ABSTRACT Approximately 3.5% of adolescents in the United States have chronic daily headache (CDH). Chronic daily headaches in adolescents are often refractory to the adult pharmacological interventions. And as a result, adolescents typically experience increased levels of stress, which exacerbates their headaches. Chronic daily headaches negatively impact both the adolescent and their family. Adolescents with CDHs frequently exemplify comorbid psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and increased risk for suicide. Risk factors for CDH in adolescents have been well studied; however, few studies have focused on psychologically based interventions to enhance effective coping, positive mental health, and pain relief in this group of teens. Given the paucity of psychologically focused interventions in this group, further research is necessary to test and develop the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral skills building (CBSB) interventions. This pilot study focused on the use of a CBSB intervention that emphasized problem solving, cue recognition, effective communication, behavior modeling, cognitive reappraisal, stress management, effective coping, and positive thinking. A randomized controlled trial pilot study was conducted. The intervention group received a seven-week intervention focused on CBSB techniques and headache education, while the comparison headache education group received a seven-week program focused on basic headache hygiene measures (e.g., adequate sleep, adequate hydration, dietary triggers, environmental triggers). The total sample included 32 adolescents inclusive of the ages 13 and 17 years. Paired t-tests resulted in significant preliminary positive effects for COPE-HEP on anxiety, depression, beliefs, headache disability, headache frequency, and headache duration. Comparison group education resulted in significant preliminary positive effects on anxiety, depression, headache disability, headache frequency, headache pain level, headache duration, and medication frequency. There were no significant changes over time in means of parent perception of pain interference for both groups. Independent t-tests revealed that COPE-HEP teens had significantly less anxiety and headache duration at post-intervention. The acceptability of the COPE-HEP intervention with adolescents with CDHs in a specialty care setting is supported by this study, while the feasibility of conducting this study in a specialty care setting is partially supported. These findings support a need to refine the intervention and test both its short and long-term effects in a full-scale randomized controlled trial with adolescents who have CDHs.
ContributorsHickman, Carolyn (Author) / Melnyk, Bernadette M (Thesis advisor) / Jacobson, Diana (Thesis advisor) / Gance-Cleveland, Bonnie (Committee member) / Szalacha, Laura (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012