Matching Items (23)
Description
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a severe motor speech disorder that is difficult to diagnose as there is currently no gold-standard measurement to differentiate between CAS and other speech disorders. In the present study, we investigate underlying biomarkers associated with CAS in addition to enhanced phenotyping through behavioral testing. Cortical electrophysiological measures were utilized to investigate differences in neural activation in response to native and non-native vowel contrasts between children with CAS and typically developing peers. Genetic analysis included full exome sequencing of a child with CAS and his unaffected parents in order to uncover underlying genetic variation that may be causal to the child’s severely impaired speech and language. Enhanced phenotyping was completed through extensive behavioral testing, including speech, language, reading, spelling, phonological awareness, gross/fine motor, and oral and hand motor tasks. Results from cortical electrophysiological measures are consistent with previous evidence of a heightened neural response to non-native sounds in CAS, potentially indicating over specified phonological representations in this population. Results of exome sequencing suggest multiple genetic variations contributing to the severely affected phenotype in the child and provide further evidence of heterogeneous genomic pathways associated with CAS. Finally, results of behavioral testing demonstrate significant impairments evident across tasks in CAS, suggesting underlying sequential processing deficits in multiple domains. Overall, these results have the potential to delineate functional pathways from genetic variations to the brain to observable behavioral phenotypes and motivate the development of preventative and targeted treatment approaches.
ContributorsVose, Caitlin (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis advisor) / Liu, Li (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS) is one of the most frequent chromosomal microdeletion syndromes in humans. This case study focuses on the language and reading profile of a female adult with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome who was undiagnosed until the age of 27 years old. To comprehensively describe the participant's profile, a series of assessment measures was administered in the speech, language, cognition, reading, and motor domains. Understanding how 22q11.2DS has impacted the life of a recently diagnosed adult will provide insight into how to best facilitate long-term language and educational support for this population and inform future research.
ContributorsPhilp, Jennifer Lynn (Author) / Scherer, Nancy (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / Department of Speech and Hearing Science (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Simulation theory states that text comprehension is achieved by simulating (or imagining) text content using motor, perceptual, and emotional systems. Hence, motor skill should correlate with comprehension skill. In fact, previous research has linked fine motor skills (FMS) with word processing and mathematical skills. I predicted a positive relationship between FMS and reading comprehension. Children enrolled in a reading comprehension intervention were assessed on FMS using the Movement ABC-2. There was a significant correlation between FMS and comprehension of narrative texts, but contrary to the prediction, the correlation was negative. Also unexpected, the control condition performed better on comprehension questions than the intervention conditions. To try to understand these results, we examined the time each child took to answer the comprehension questions. Many children answered the questions quickly, and average time to answer the questions was strongly correlated with comprehension scores. Children may have been answering questions quickly (and randomly) in order to advance to the next story. Nonetheless, the data do not support a relationship between FMS and reading comprehension.
ContributorsWeiss, Julia (Author) / Glenberg, Arthur (Thesis director) / Gomez Franco, Ligia (Committee member) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
The purpose of this project was to investigate the hypothesis that adults with dyslexia tend to have lower accuracies in and take longer to process tasks involving the serial order of letters, compared to age and gender-matched controls. In Experiment 1, participants evaluated word pairs for differences. Half of the word pairs that they evaluated were the same, whereas the remaining word pairs differed along specific parameters such as sequential rearrangements ("left" vs "felt"), left/right reversals ("cob" vs "cod"), up/down reversals ("best" vs "pest"), homophones ("grown" vs "groan"), visual letter similarities ("tight" vs "fight"), and generic substitutions ("moan" vs "loan"). The response times and accuracies of both groups were recorded. In Experiment 2, the participants spelled single words to dictation using the spelling subtest from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test\u2014II. Spelling errors were evaluated for errors such as sequential rearrangements, left/right reversals, homophones, substitutions, orthographic violations, omissions, and insertions. An example of a spelling error is the word "excitement" misspelled as "excietment", which involves a sequential rearrangement error. Another example is the word "apparently" misspelled as "aparently,", which involves an error of omission. Error frequencies within these error types for both groups were recorded. Experiment 3 evaluated whether left/right reversal errors during the letter-naming Rapid Automatized Naming and Rapid Alternating Stimulus (RAN/RAS) task were associated with left/right errors during word pair comparison and spelling and whether these visual reversal errors were also associated with errors of serial order. The group with dyslexia was split into two groups: group 1 included participants who did not make any left/right reversals during the RAN/RAS task and group 2 included participants who did make left/right reversals during the RAN/RAS task. The accuracies and reaction times of these three groups during the comparison and spelling assessments were recorded. The results of experiment 1 revealed that that adults with dyslexia had a significantly higher reaction time and lower accuracy during the sequential rearrangement and left/right reversal conditions. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the group with dyslexia made significantly more spelling errors during the homophone and omission conditions. The results of Experiment 3 showed associations between the sequential rearrangement and left/right conditions in both the word pair comparison and spelling task for participants with dyslexia who made left/right reversals during the RAN/RAS task. Overall, the participants with dyslexia who made left/right reversals during the RAN/RAS task seemed to have greater difficulty understanding the orientation of letters that occur on a horizontal plane, since this underlying pattern of errors was also seen throughout the spelling and word comparison tasks. These results show that left/right reversals and errors of serial order are evident in some, but not all adults with dyslexia. These errors may also characterize a distinct subtype of dyslexia. Further, errors of left/right reversal and serial order appear to be associated, so left/right reversals may represent a special form of serial order error that involves a change in the order of visual processing in the horizontal but not vertical axis of letter orientation.
ContributorsAlbert, Andria (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
The International Dyslexia Association defines dyslexia as a learning disorder that is characterized by poor spelling, decoding, and word recognition abilities. There is still no known cause of dyslexia, although it is a very common disability that affects 1 in 10 people. Previous fMRI and MRI research in dyslexia has explored the neural correlations of hemispheric lateralization and phonemic awareness in dyslexia. The present study investigated the underlying neurobiology of five adults with dyslexia compared to age- and sex-matched control subjects using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. All subjects completed a large battery of behavioral tasks as part of a larger study and underwent functional and structural MRI acquisition. This data was collected and preprocessed at the University of Washington. Analyses focused on examining the neural correlates of hemispheric lateralization, letter reversal mistakes, reduced processing speed, and phonemic awareness. There were no significant findings of hemispheric differences between subjects with dyslexia and controls. The subject making the largest amount of letter reversal errors had deactivation in their cerebellum during the fMRI language task. Cerebellar white matter volume and surface area of the premotor cortex was the largest in the individual with the slowest reaction time to tapping. Phonemic decoding efficiency had a high correlation with neural activation in the primary motor cortex during the fMRI motor task (r=0.6). Findings from the present study suggest that brain regions utilized during motor control, such as the cerebellum, premotor cortex, and primary motor cortex, may have a larger role in dyslexia then previously considered. Future studies are needed to further distinguish the role of the cerebellum and other motor regions in relation to motor control and language processing deficits related to dyslexia.
ContributorsHoulihan, Chloe Carissa Prince (Author) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Music is part of cultures all over the world and is entrenched in our daily lives, and yet little is known about the neural pathways responsible for how we perceive music. The property of "dissonance" is central to our understanding of the emotional meaning in music, and this study is a preliminary step in understanding how this property of music is perceived. Twenty-four participants with normal hearing listened to melodies and ranked their degrees of dissonance. Melodies that are categorized as "dissonant" according to Western music theory were ranked as more "dissonant" to a significant degree across the 9 conditions (3 conditions of scale: Major, Neapolitan Minor, and Oriental; 3 conditions of wrong notes: no wrong notes, diatonic wrong notes, and non-diatonic wrong notes). As expected, the familiar Major scale was identified as more consonant across all wrong note conditions than the other scales. Notably, a significant interaction was found, with diatonic and non-diatonic notes not perceived differently in both of the unfamiliar scales, Neapolitan and Oriental. This study suggests that the context of musical scale does influence how we create expectations of music and perceive dissonance. Future studies are necessary to understand the mechanisms by which scales drive these expectations.
ContributorsBlumenstein, Nicole Rose (Author) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / FitzPatrick, Carole (Committee member) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the EMBRACE Spanish support intervention for at-risk dual language learners and to determine which verbal and nonverbal characteristics of students were related to benefit from the intervention. The first study examined oral language and reading characteristics and the second study examined motor characteristics in predicting the children's outcomes on a reading comprehension intervention.
Method: Fifty-six participants in 2nd-5th grade were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) Spanish-support intervention, or 2) Spanish-support control. Outcome measures included performance on comprehension questions related to intervention texts, questions on the final narrative and expository text without strategy instruction, and difference scores on alternate forms of the Gates-MacGinitie (GMRT-4, MacGinitie, MacGinitie, Maria, & Dreyer, 2002) reading comprehension subtest administered pre- post-intervention. Multi-level hierarchical linear models were used to account for nesting of question within child within classroom. Regression models were used to examine the power of motor predictors in predicting Spanish and English language performance.
Results: Results from study 1 indicated that the intervention was most effective for narrative (vs. expository) texts and easy (vs. more difficult) texts. Dual language learners (DLLs) with lower initial English reading comprehension abilities benefitted more from the intervention than those with stronger reading skills. Results from Study 2 indicated that oral fine motor abilities predicted Spanish (but not English) oral language abilities in the expected direction (i.e. faster performance associated with higher language scores). The speed of /pata/ productions predicted reading comprehension during the intervention, but not in the expected direction (i.e. slower speeds associated with higher accuracy). Manual fine motor performance on tapping tasks was not related to language or reading.
Conclusions: The EMBRACE intervention has promise for use with at-risk DLLs. Future research should take care to match text difficulty with child skills so as to maximize benefit from the intervention. Oral fine motor abilities were related to language abilities in DLLs, but only for the native language. Slower oral fine motor performance predicted higher accuracy on intervention questions, suggesting that EMBRACE may be particularly effective for children with weak fine motor skills.
Method: Fifty-six participants in 2nd-5th grade were randomly assigned to one of two groups: 1) Spanish-support intervention, or 2) Spanish-support control. Outcome measures included performance on comprehension questions related to intervention texts, questions on the final narrative and expository text without strategy instruction, and difference scores on alternate forms of the Gates-MacGinitie (GMRT-4, MacGinitie, MacGinitie, Maria, & Dreyer, 2002) reading comprehension subtest administered pre- post-intervention. Multi-level hierarchical linear models were used to account for nesting of question within child within classroom. Regression models were used to examine the power of motor predictors in predicting Spanish and English language performance.
Results: Results from study 1 indicated that the intervention was most effective for narrative (vs. expository) texts and easy (vs. more difficult) texts. Dual language learners (DLLs) with lower initial English reading comprehension abilities benefitted more from the intervention than those with stronger reading skills. Results from Study 2 indicated that oral fine motor abilities predicted Spanish (but not English) oral language abilities in the expected direction (i.e. faster performance associated with higher language scores). The speed of /pata/ productions predicted reading comprehension during the intervention, but not in the expected direction (i.e. slower speeds associated with higher accuracy). Manual fine motor performance on tapping tasks was not related to language or reading.
Conclusions: The EMBRACE intervention has promise for use with at-risk DLLs. Future research should take care to match text difficulty with child skills so as to maximize benefit from the intervention. Oral fine motor abilities were related to language abilities in DLLs, but only for the native language. Slower oral fine motor performance predicted higher accuracy on intervention questions, suggesting that EMBRACE may be particularly effective for children with weak fine motor skills.
ContributorsAdams, Ashley (Author) / Restrepo, Maria Adelaida (Thesis advisor) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Connor, Carol M (Committee member) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
It is important to consider attention when designing and conducting an experiment due to the significant impact it can have on how people process information. This study compared the influence attention can have on performance of an auditory task. Using an EEG system and measuring cortical evoked response potentials (ERPs) the assumptions about keeping eyes open during passive listening tasks which related to the low attention parameter of MMN, as well as requiring an active response for the high attention parameter of the P300 were tested. The hypotheses were that the presence of an active, focused component will increase the magnitude of the P300 (as is generally accepted), that the presence of an active, focused component will decrease the magnitude of the MMN (as is currently debated), and that closed eyes would diminish the magnitude of both components (as also is currently debated). The presence of significant values for both the P300 amplitude and P300 adaptive mean indicated a successful causal link between the presence of an active condition and an increased P300 waveform, while the high individual variability present throughout the data focus the scope of future study on MMN and P300.
ContributorsKonduri, Gopi (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Lancaster, Hope (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the pandemic’s effect on the psychosocial and physical quality of life of children with and without classic galactosemia and their parents in the Babble Boot Camp. The Babble Boot Camp within ASU’s Speech and Hearing Genetics Lab provides early intervention speech therapy for children with classic galactosemia (CG), evaluating their speech progress as well as other metrics related to stress and quality of life. In this study, the Quality of Life questionnaire (Varni, 1998) was used to measure how three pandemic stages (pre-pandemic, intense-pandemic, post intense-pandemic) affected the entire participant population, those with CG children compared to typically developing, and each family member (father vs. mother vs. child). These factors were combined within an integrated regression model to see driving factors and correlations within responses. The main results were that the pandemic itself did not have a significant effect, but there was quite a significant impact on psychosocial health when comparing affected vs unaffected groups. Evaluating an integrated regression model with the consideration of all three pandemic phases, the results show that the factor driving group differences over time was the affectation of the participant for psychosocial health and family member for physical health. When looking at just pre-pandemic and intense pandemic phase, both models in their entirety were significant, showing that all predictors (affectation, pandemic phase, and family member) drove health differences. Lastly, the findings of the study show that there were significant correlations between the health scores of fathers, mothers, and children throughout the different stages of the pandemic.
ContributorsCordovana, Caitlin (Author) / Nazareno, Andrea (Co-author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
Studies during and following the height of the Coronavirus pandemic show that psychological and physical health levels decrease, due to factors such as reduced human contact and anxiety. However, there is little to no research on how quality of life levels would change over the course of the pandemic for families who have the added stress of having a child with a developmental complication. To answer this question, this study utilized longitudinal data from the Babble Boot Camp, a project under the ASU Speech Language Genetics Lab, to analyze quality of life measures in families who have children with Classic Galactosemia (CG). CG is an inborn metabolic disorder that causes an intolerance to galactose, a sugar in dairy, the effects of which can be deadly. These children often show signs of developmental delays in multiple areas within the first few years of life. Studying quality of life surveys before, during, and after the most intense phase of the pandemic, this study investigates the difference between these families and those with typical children.
ContributorsNazareno, Andrea (Author) / Cordovana, Caitlin (Co-author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Azuma, Tamiko (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2023-05