Matching Items (5)
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- All Subjects: Speech therapy
- Creators: Restrepo, Maria Adelaida
Description
Concussion, a subset of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), has recently been brought to the forefront of the media due to a large lawsuit filed against the National Football League. Concussion resulting from injury varies in severity, duration, and type, based on many characteristics about the individual that research does not presently understand. Chronic fatigue, poor working memory, impaired self-awareness, and lack of attention to task are symptoms commonly present post-concussion. Currently, there is not a standard method of assessing concussion, nor is there a way to track an individual's recovery, resulting in misguided treatment for better prognosis. The aim of the following study was to determine patient specific higher-order cognitive processing deficits for clinical diagnosis and prognosis of concussion. Six individuals (N=6) were seen during the acute phase of concussion, two of whom were seen subsequently when their symptoms were deemed clinically resolved. Subjective information was collected from both the patient and from neurology testing. Each individual completed a task, in which they were presented with degraded speech, taxing their higher-order cognitive processing. Patient specific behavioral patterns are noted, creating a unique paradigm for mapping subjective and objective data for each patient's strategy to compensate for deficits and understand speech in a difficult listening situation. Keywords: concussion, cognitive processing
ContributorsBerg, Dena (Author) / Liss, Julie M (Committee member) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Caviness, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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
Purpose: The present study examined grammatical gender use in child Spanish heritage speakers (HSs) in order to determine whether the differences observed in their grammar, when compared to Spanish monolinguals, stem from an incompletely acquired grammar, in which development stops, or from a restructuring process, in which features from the dominant and the weaker language converge to form a new grammatical system. In addition, this study evaluated whether the differences usually found in comprehension are also present in production. Finally, this study evaluates if HSs differences are the result of the input available to them.
Method: One-hundred and four typically developing children, 48 HSs and 58 monolingual, were selected based on two age groups (Preschool vs. 3rd Grade). Two comprehension and three production experimental tasks were designed for the three different grammatical structures where Spanish expresses gender (determiners, adjectives, and clitic pronouns). Linear mixed-models were used to examine main effects between groups and grammatical structures.
Results: Results from this study showed that HSs scored significantly lower than monolingual speakers in all tasks and structures; however, 3rd-Grade HSs had higher accuracy than PK-HSs. Error patterns were similar between monolinguals and HSs. Moreover, the commonly reported overgeneralization of the masculine form seems to decrease as HSs get older.
Conclusion: These results suggest that HSs’ do not face a case of Incomplete Acquisition or Restructured Grammatical gender system, but instead follow a protracted language development in which grammatical skills continue to develop after preschool years and follow the same developmental patterns as monolingual children
Method: One-hundred and four typically developing children, 48 HSs and 58 monolingual, were selected based on two age groups (Preschool vs. 3rd Grade). Two comprehension and three production experimental tasks were designed for the three different grammatical structures where Spanish expresses gender (determiners, adjectives, and clitic pronouns). Linear mixed-models were used to examine main effects between groups and grammatical structures.
Results: Results from this study showed that HSs scored significantly lower than monolingual speakers in all tasks and structures; however, 3rd-Grade HSs had higher accuracy than PK-HSs. Error patterns were similar between monolinguals and HSs. Moreover, the commonly reported overgeneralization of the masculine form seems to decrease as HSs get older.
Conclusion: These results suggest that HSs’ do not face a case of Incomplete Acquisition or Restructured Grammatical gender system, but instead follow a protracted language development in which grammatical skills continue to develop after preschool years and follow the same developmental patterns as monolingual children
ContributorsMartinez-Nieto, Lourdes (Author) / Restrepo, Maria Adelaida (Thesis advisor) / Renaud, Claire (Thesis advisor) / Pascual y Cabo, Diego (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Ingram, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Purpose: Over-identification of Navajo Head Start children into special education on the Navajo Reservation has come to the attention of Tribal leaders, Educational leaders, and parents due to the use of invalid assessment measures. Dynamic assessment (DA) of narratives may be a tool for distinguishing language differences from language disorders. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Predictive Early Assessment of Reading and Language (PEARL), a dynamic assessment of narratives, accurately classifies Navajo Head Start students with typically developing (TD) language or with language impairment (LI), and to examine which measures best predict children’s overall performances on the PEARL.
Method: Ninety, 4- and 5-year-old Navajo preschoolers with LI and with TD language were selected. Children completed the PEARL, which measured both language comprehension and production using pretest and posttest scores, and a modifiability scale. In addition, children completed the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental, Preschool, Second Edition (CELF – Preschool 2) and language samples. A Navajo Speech Language Pathologist confirmed the diagnosis of the participants. Research assistants pretested, briefly taught the principles of narrative structure (story grammar, language complexity and episode) and evaluated response to learning using an index of modifiability.
Results: Results of discriminant analysis indicated that PEARL pretest differentiated both ability groups with 89% accuracy. In addition, posttest scores discriminated with 89% accuracy and modifiability scores with 100% accuracy. Further, the subtest story grammar was the best predictor at pretest and posttest, although modifiability scores were better predictors of both ability groups.
Conclusion: Findings indicate that the PEARL is a promising assessment for accurately differentiating Navajo preschool children with LI from Navajo preschool children with TD language. The PEARL’s recommended pretest cut score over-identified Navajo children with TD language; therefore, a new recommended cut score was determined.
Method: Ninety, 4- and 5-year-old Navajo preschoolers with LI and with TD language were selected. Children completed the PEARL, which measured both language comprehension and production using pretest and posttest scores, and a modifiability scale. In addition, children completed the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamental, Preschool, Second Edition (CELF – Preschool 2) and language samples. A Navajo Speech Language Pathologist confirmed the diagnosis of the participants. Research assistants pretested, briefly taught the principles of narrative structure (story grammar, language complexity and episode) and evaluated response to learning using an index of modifiability.
Results: Results of discriminant analysis indicated that PEARL pretest differentiated both ability groups with 89% accuracy. In addition, posttest scores discriminated with 89% accuracy and modifiability scores with 100% accuracy. Further, the subtest story grammar was the best predictor at pretest and posttest, although modifiability scores were better predictors of both ability groups.
Conclusion: Findings indicate that the PEARL is a promising assessment for accurately differentiating Navajo preschool children with LI from Navajo preschool children with TD language. The PEARL’s recommended pretest cut score over-identified Navajo children with TD language; therefore, a new recommended cut score was determined.
ContributorsHenderson, Davis E (Author) / Restrepo, Maria Adelaida (Thesis advisor) / Aiken, Leona (Committee member) / Petersen, Douglas (Committee member) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Committee member) / Kleinsasser, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The purpose of the Preschool Intervention for Embodied Storytelling (PIES) study was to evaluate the efficacy of a drama-based story time intervention on at-risk preschool students’ emotion knowledge, story retell and story comprehension skills. Six classrooms with 44 students were randomly assigned into drama-based intervention and dialogic reading control groups. After four weeks of intervention sessions twice per week, students’ emotion knowledge and story retell skills were assessed with distal measures. During the program, students’ comprehension of the stories was evaluated weekly. Participants did not show significant main effects on any measures, however investigation of simple effects revealed differences in gains over time for intervention students in their story retell skills. Despite lack of significance, effect sizes for story retell were promising. Mean differences in story comprehension skills were consistently in favor of the intervention group for the duration of the program. Teacher participants showed an increase in their positive perceptions of drama-based instruction, but their own use of these strategies at story time was variable before and after observing the PIES program. Drama based instruction through PIES may be a favorable intervention strategy for preschool students as they develop narrative skills that are a prerequisite for future reading comprehension success.
ContributorsPierce, Melissa (Author) / Restrepo, Maria Adelaida (Thesis advisor) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Marley, Scott (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022