Matching Items (31)
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
Objective: A recent electroencephalogram (EEG) study of adults with dyslexia showed that individuals with dyslexia have diminished auditory sensory gating compared to typical controls. Previous studies done involving intoxication and its effect on sensory gating and creativity have shown that there is a positive correlation between creativity (divergent thinking problem solving) and sensory gating deficiency. With previous study findings, the link between dyslexia and sensory gating deficiency and the link between sensory gating deficiency and creativity have been shown, but not the link between dyslexia and creativity. This pilot study aims to address this knowledge gap using event-related potentials.
Methods: Two adults with dyslexia and 4 control adults participated in an auditory gating test using tone pairs. Latencies and Amplitudes for the N100 and P200 responses were recorded and analyzed. Participants were also administered the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA), a test of creative ability designed to evaluate divergent thinking in individuals. Results were averaged and compared.
Results: The averaged difference in measured N100 amplitudes between tone 1 and tone 2 was significantly larger in the control group compared to the difference observed in the dyslexia group. In particular, one participant with dyslexia who had low scores on a task of rapid word recognition also showed no evidence of gating at the N100 component, whereas the other participant with dyslexia with good word recognition scores showed evidence of intact gating. The averaged difference in measured P200 amplitude between tone 1 and tone 2 was larger in the dyslexia group compared to the control group; however, the difference was small enough to be considered insignificant. The total average ATTA score for the control group was higher than the average of the dyslexia group. This difference in total average was less than one point on a 106-point scale.
Conclusions: Neural sensory gating occurs approximately 100 ms after the onset of a stimulus and is diminished in adults with dyslexia who also have deficits in rapid word recognition. There is a difference in creativity, in terms of divergent thinking, between those with dyslexia and those without (controls scored higher on average); however, the difference is not significant (less than one point). Dyslexia scores were more consistent than controls.
Methods: Two adults with dyslexia and 4 control adults participated in an auditory gating test using tone pairs. Latencies and Amplitudes for the N100 and P200 responses were recorded and analyzed. Participants were also administered the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA), a test of creative ability designed to evaluate divergent thinking in individuals. Results were averaged and compared.
Results: The averaged difference in measured N100 amplitudes between tone 1 and tone 2 was significantly larger in the control group compared to the difference observed in the dyslexia group. In particular, one participant with dyslexia who had low scores on a task of rapid word recognition also showed no evidence of gating at the N100 component, whereas the other participant with dyslexia with good word recognition scores showed evidence of intact gating. The averaged difference in measured P200 amplitude between tone 1 and tone 2 was larger in the dyslexia group compared to the control group; however, the difference was small enough to be considered insignificant. The total average ATTA score for the control group was higher than the average of the dyslexia group. This difference in total average was less than one point on a 106-point scale.
Conclusions: Neural sensory gating occurs approximately 100 ms after the onset of a stimulus and is diminished in adults with dyslexia who also have deficits in rapid word recognition. There is a difference in creativity, in terms of divergent thinking, between those with dyslexia and those without (controls scored higher on average); however, the difference is not significant (less than one point). Dyslexia scores were more consistent than controls.
ContributorsDuran, Isaac (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Daliri, Ayoub (Committee member) / Rogalsky, Corianne (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The purpose of this study was to compare the speech and motor functions a group of individuals with Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) and a case study of an individual who has suffered a right cerebellar stroke. The participants consisted of one case study adult and three families made up of three to five members each, all with a history of CAS. All of the participants in the study performed below average on speech and motor function tests. There are some comparable similarities between the CAS group and the case study individual suggesting that there is cerebellar involvement in the fine motor skills needed to perform speech movements.
ContributorsWilliams, Emma (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Bruce, Laurel (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
In the study of the human brain’s ability to multitask, there are two perspectives: concurrent multitasking (performing multiple tasks simultaneously) and sequential multitasking (switching between tasks). The goal of this study is to investigate the human brain’s ability to “multitask” with multiple demanding stimuli of approximately equal concentration, from an electrophysiological perspective different than that of stimuli which don’t require full attention or exhibit impulsive multitasking responses. This study investigates the P3 component which has been experimentally proven to be associated with mental workload through information processing and cognitive function in visual and auditory tasks, where in the multitasking domain the greater attention elicited, the larger P3 waves are produced. This experiment compares the amplitude of the P3 component of individual stimulus presentation to that of multitasking trials, taking note of the brain workload. This study questions if the average wave amplitude in a multitasking ERP experiment will be the same as the grand average when performing the two tasks individually with respect to the P3 component. The hypothesis is that the P3 amplitude will be smaller in the multitasking trial than in the individual stimulus presentation, indicating that the brain is not actually concentrating on both tasks at once (sequential multitasking instead of concurrent) and that the brain is not focusing on each stimulus to the same degree when it was presented individually. Twenty undergraduate students at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University (10 males and 10 females, with a mean age of 18.75 years, SD= 1.517) right handed, with normal or corrected visual acuity, English as first language, and no evidence of neurological compromise participated in the study. The experiment results revealed that one- hundred percent of participants undergo sequential multitasking in the presence of two demanding stimuli in the electrophysiological data, behavioral data, and subjective data. In this particular study, these findings indicate that the presence of additional demanding stimuli causes the workload of the brain to decrease as attention deviates in a bottleneck process to the multiple requisitions for focus, indicated by a reduced P3 voltage amplitude with the multitasking stimuli when compared to the independent. This study illustrates the feasible replication of P3 cognitive workload results for demanding stimuli, not only impulsive-response experiments, to suggest the brain’s tendency to undergo sequential multitasking when faced with multiple demanding stimuli. In brief, this study demonstrates that when higher cognitive processing is required to interpret and respond to the stimuli, the human brain results to sequential multitasking (task- switching, not concurrent multitasking) in the face of more challenging problems with each stimulus requiring a higher level of focus, workload, and attention.
ContributorsNeill, Ryan (Author) / Brewer, Gene (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of parent training in Enhanced Milieu Teaching with Phonological Emphasis (EMT+PE) using telepractice on the speech and language outcomes of children with cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P).
Method: Three parent-child dyads participated in the study. All child participants had nonsyndromic CL/P and ranged in age from 21 to 27months. Participants received three weekly telepractice intervention sessions, along with a total of three in-person parent training sessions. Intervention and training were conducted by an SLP and trained graduate student.
Results: All speech measures indicated a gain in essential speech skills for all three children when comparing pre-intervention to post-intervention assessment results. Positive improvement was seen across multiple language measures for all participants.
Conclusion: A parent implemented EMT+PE intervention program using telepractice is an effective way to increase child speech and language outcomes for children with CL/P. Speech and language targets should be combined and delivered simultaneously in intervention.
Method: Three parent-child dyads participated in the study. All child participants had nonsyndromic CL/P and ranged in age from 21 to 27months. Participants received three weekly telepractice intervention sessions, along with a total of three in-person parent training sessions. Intervention and training were conducted by an SLP and trained graduate student.
Results: All speech measures indicated a gain in essential speech skills for all three children when comparing pre-intervention to post-intervention assessment results. Positive improvement was seen across multiple language measures for all participants.
Conclusion: A parent implemented EMT+PE intervention program using telepractice is an effective way to increase child speech and language outcomes for children with CL/P. Speech and language targets should be combined and delivered simultaneously in intervention.
ContributorsEllis, Paige (Author) / Scherer, Nancy (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Classic Galactosemia (CG) is a rare recessive metabolic disease resulting in the inability to digest galactose. Despite early detection via newborn screening and strict diet management, infants with CG are at high risk for severe speech (60%) and language (90%) disorders (Waggoner, D., Buist, N., & Donnell, 1990). Although this risk is known since birth, no preventive treatment approaches in the area of speech and language have been developed. The Babble Boot Camp (BBC) is the first experimental proactive intervention for infants with CG ages 2 to 24 months. It is designed to stimulate early vocalization, coo, babble, first words, vocabulary growth, and syntactic complexity, with the goal of preventing or at least ameliorating the expected speech and language difficulties. All children undergo close monitoring. Day-long audio recordings, collected once per month using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system, are the source material for pre-speech and speech measures including Mean Babbling Level (MBL), Syllable Structure Level (SSL), and phonetic and phonemic inventory complexity.
Parent questionnaires are analyzed for expressive vocabulary size. Here, findings are described for the first 9 children who underwent the BBC and an untreated control child, all with CG. The initial results are consistent with higher MBL and SSL scores in the treatment cohort, compared to the untreated control infant. In addition, most children in the treatment cohort achieved larger vocabulary sizes than the control child. Of the four oldest children in the treatment cohort, three had expressive vocabularies within normal limits at 21 months. Phonetic
inventory complexity at 11 months predicted expressive vocabulary at 18 months. Given the high risk for speech and language disorders in children with CG, these results are encouraging, but an appropriately powered clinical trial is necessary to validate these findings. The BBC is on its way to a full clinical trial with 75 families, fully funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Parent questionnaires are analyzed for expressive vocabulary size. Here, findings are described for the first 9 children who underwent the BBC and an untreated control child, all with CG. The initial results are consistent with higher MBL and SSL scores in the treatment cohort, compared to the untreated control infant. In addition, most children in the treatment cohort achieved larger vocabulary sizes than the control child. Of the four oldest children in the treatment cohort, three had expressive vocabularies within normal limits at 21 months. Phonetic
inventory complexity at 11 months predicted expressive vocabulary at 18 months. Given the high risk for speech and language disorders in children with CG, these results are encouraging, but an appropriately powered clinical trial is necessary to validate these findings. The BBC is on its way to a full clinical trial with 75 families, fully funded by the National Institutes of Health.
ContributorsDonenfeld-Peled, Inbal (Author) / Peter, Beate (Thesis director) / Weinhold, Juliet (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Past studies have shown that auditory feedback plays an important role in maintaining the speech production system. Typically, speakers compensate for auditory feedback alterations when the alterations persist over time (auditory motor adaptation). Our study focused on how to increase the rate of adaptation by using different auditory feedback conditions. For the present study, we recruited a total of 30 participants. We examined auditory motor adaptation after participants completed three conditions: Normal speaking, noise-masked speaking, and silent reading. The normal condition was used as a control condition. In the noise-masked condition, noise was added to the auditory feedback to completely mask speech outputs. In the silent reading condition, participants were instructed to silently read target words in their heads, then read the words out loud. We found that the learning rate in the noise-masked condition was lower than that in the normal condition. In contrast, participants adapted at a faster rate after they experience the silent reading condition. Overall, this study demonstrated that adaptation rate can be modified through pre-exposing participants to different types auditory-motor manipulations.
ContributorsNavarrete, Karina (Author) / Daliri, Ayoub (Thesis director) / Peter, Beate (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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
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
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