2019-2020 Senior Honors Theses
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10657/6786
This collection contains theses produced by Class of 2020 Honors students
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Browsing 2019-2020 Senior Honors Theses by Department "Communication Sciences and Disorders, Department of"
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Item A comparison of speech patterns in children with cochlear implants and their peers with normal hearing(2020-05) Houston, HaleyPurpose: The current study investigates the speech patterns of young children with cochlear implants and their peers with normal hearing by comparing group differences on typical and atypical phonological processes, phonological whole-word measures, and segmental accuracy. Method: Data were collected from 30 English-speaking 5- to 7-year-olds (15 children with normal hearing and 15 children with cochlear implants) using a single-word elicitation task. The independent variables were hearing status group (cochlear implant users versus children with normal hearing) and typicality of phonological processes. The dependent variables included 6 typical versus 6 atypical phonological processes, phonological whole-word measures, and segmental accuracy measures. Results: Cochlear implant users versus children with normal hearing displayed differences on phonological processes, and there was a main effect of typicality of phonological processes. A statistically significant interaction between hearing status and typicality of phonological processes was also found, indicating that CI users had disproportionally higher percentage of atypical phonological processes than their peers with normal hearing. All of phonological whole-word measures and segmental accuracy measures displayed differences based on hearing status. Conclusions: Hearing status does affect phonological outcomes, but the speech patterns of cochlear implant users display unique patterns that distinguish them from their peers with normal hearing. Specific patterns emerged indicating that cochlear implant users’ speech patterns differ both quantitatively and qualitatively from patterns attested in their peers with normal hearing, providing novel and relevant insights for researchers and clinicians alike.Item Civilian Voices from the Iraq War: Profiles of Iraqi Refugees in Houston(2020-04) Kazmi, Wafa-e-fatimaFollowing the Iraq War of 2003, a rich stream of information analyzing PTSD in American soldiers, the realities of war, and other important narratives began to appear. However, in part because journalists were embedded primarily with the American military, not enough attention was given to civilians in Iraq. Few Americans know how the war affected infrastructure, communities, and daily routines of ordinary Iraqis were affected. Equally lacking are intimate, complex narratives about the lives of those Iraqis who fled the war, many of whom came to the United States. With the exception of comprehensive and illuminating refugee profiles by writers such as Kimberly Myer and Peter Holley, the few narratives about Houston’s refugee population lean towards blithe notions of the American dream, rather than the experience of living in the wake of war. This project serves to elicit voice from those whose narratives are nearly invisible in the American mainstream. In this regard it centers the experience of Iraqi civilians in a context that has tended to marginalize them. In this creative nonfiction piece, I explore how the Iraq War (2001-2011) impacted civilian life in Iraq, especially with regard to curfews, family life, access to healthcare, and physical and mental health changes both during the invasion and its aftermath. The profiles also show how Western reports of the war differed from Iraqi civilian accounts of what was happening on the ground, and the larger implications of this dissonance. Through the narratives of a mother, a translator, and a journalist, the continuous theme of violence against civilians is presented, as well as an understanding of how Western media’s negligence in representing an accurate civilian narrative led to growing tensions in Iraq.Item Word Length and Syllable Shape Effects On Segmental Accuracy in Bilingual Children With Cochlear Implants and Their Peers With Normal Hearing(2020-05) Perez, ElizabethPurpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze speech production patterns of bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking bilingual children with hearing loss who use cochlear implants and their peers with normal hearing by specifically focusing on how hearing status, language, syllable complexity, and word length affect segmental accuracy. Method: Forty bilingual Spanish- and English-speaking children between the ages of 5;3 and 7;9 (years; months) from the greater Houston metropolitan area participated in the study. Twenty participants were cochlear implant users and 20 had normal hearing. The participants were matched across groups on chronological age, gender and socio-economic status as closely as possible. Cochlear implant users received their implants before they turned 3 years old (i.e., early implanted) and had at least 3 years of implant experience. A single-word elicitation task was used to prompt the target words in each language, using culturally- and age-appropriate items consisting of about 80 words in each language. A subset of the items was selected for the analyses to test the effects of hearing status (cochlear implant users versus their age-matched peers with normal hearing), language (Spanish versus English), word length in syllables (monosyllabic, disyllabic, and trisyllabic), and syllable complexity (no clusters versus including clusters) on segmental accuracy (percent segments correct). A repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted with hearing status as the between-subjects variable as well as three within-subjects factors: language, word length in syllables, and syllable complexity with segmental accuracy (percent segments correct) as the dependent variable. Results: There was a statistically significant main effect of hearing status [F (1, 35) = 40.24 at p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.54], language [F (1, 35) = 4.57 at p = 0.040 , partial η² = 0.12], word length in syllables [F (2, 70) = 13.42 at p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.28], and syllable complexity [F (1, 35) = 52.63 at p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.60] on segmental accuracy. Statistically significant interactions included hearing status by word length in syllables [F (2, 70) = 5.88 at p = 0.004, partial η² = 0.14], hearing status by syllable complexity [F (1, 35) = 18.20 at p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.34], language by word length in syllables [F (2, 70) = 18.03 at p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.34], language by word length in syllables by hearing status [F (2, 70) = 4.63 at p = 0.013, partial η² = 0.12], language by word length in syllables by syllable complexity [F (2, 70) = 10.67 at p < 0.001, partial η² = 0.23]. Conclusions: Hearing status, language, word length in syllables, and syllable complexity all had statistically significant effects on segmental accuracy, as predicted. Furthermore, interdependence between hearing status by syllable complexity suggests that more complex syllables are disproportionally more challenging for bilingual cochlear implant users than their peers with normal hearing. The interactions of hearing status by syllable complexity, language by word length, language by word length by hearing status, as well as language by word length by syllable complexity indicate the interdependence of these factors, painting a complex picture that is as informative for researchers in the field as it is for practicing speech-language pathologists, audiologists, and educators who work with bilingual children with hearing loss and their peers with normal hearing.