Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2010 - Present)
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The University of Houston Libraries collect and make publicly available all electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) produced in UH graduate and PhD programs through the UH institutional repository. ETDs become available after the student submits them to the UH Graduate School, the document is approved by all appropriate parties, and any embargo on the document expires.
Collection Scope
UH Libraries began publishing ETDs from several UH Colleges in 2010. As of Summer 2014, all UH Colleges that require a thesis or dissertation for graduation began submitting these documents in electronic format. Below is a list of UH Colleges that currently participate in the ETD program and their coverage dates in this repository.
UH College | Coverage Dates |
---|---|
C.T. Bauer College of Business | 2010-Present |
Cullen College of Engineering | 2012-Present |
Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management | 2015-Present |
College of Education | 2010-Present |
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences | 2012-Present |
College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics | 2012-Present |
College of Optometry | 2010-Present |
College of Pharmacy | 2010-Present |
College of Technology | 2012-Present |
K. G. McGovern College of the Arts | 2016-Present |
G. D. Hines College of Architecture & Design | 2016-Present |
Graduate College of Social Work | 2012-Present |
Additional Information
- Online access for content outside these coverage dates may be available electronically through ProQuest.
Note: As of Fall 2017, all theses and dissertations produced at UH will be submitted to ProQuest. Additionally, some UH Colleges have contributed content to ProQuest at different periods of time in the past. - For print theses and dissertations found outside these coverage dates, please consult UH Libraries’ catalog.
- Additional information on submitting ETDs can be found at the UH Graduate School.
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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2010 - Present) by Department "Communication Sciences and Disorders, Department of"
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Item A Comparison of Speech Disfluencies in Bilingual Spanish-English Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter: A Preliminary Investigation(2017-05) Rincon, Cristina; Johnson, Kia N.; Castilla-Earls, Anny; Byrd, Courtney T.Bilingual Spanish-English (SE) children who do not stutter (CWNS) are known to exceed the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering based on monolingual English speakers. Therefore, this population is at risk of being misdiagnosed as children who stutter (CWS). The purpose of this study is to examine the speech disfluency frequency and type of bilingual SE CWS to SE CWNS during narrative samples elicited in Spanish and English to provide further diagnostic information for this population. Participants included 5 bilingual Spanish-English children (2 CWS, 3 CWNS) ranging in age from 5 years to 7 years and 5 months and recruited from the surrounding Houston, Texas area. Findings indicate that the current diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering, based on monolingual English speakers, are not appropriate for bilingual Spanish-English children who do not stutter because it is too low for this population. Regardless of the language being spoken, CWS participants had a frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies that exceeded the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering that is based on monolingual English speakers. The CWNS participants varied in meeting the criteria depending on the language being spoken. Findings from this study may contribute to the stuttering frequency criteria specific to bilingual SE children to reduce misdiagnoses of stuttering in this population.Item A COMPARISON OF VERBAL MORPHOLOGICAL ERRORS IN SPANISH-SPEAKING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS WITH AND WITHOUT DEVELOPMENTAL LANGUAGE DISORDERS(2021-05) Balderas, Clarissa; Castilla-Earls, Anny; Mills, Monique T.; Zhang, JiePurpose: The purpose of this study is to assess morphological markers in Spanish-speaking children, who are English language learners, with and without DLD, to determine the type of verb errors made by each group and the frequency of the verb errors. Methods: The participants in this study included 76 Spanish-English bilingual children between 4;3 and 8;2 with (n=52) and without DLD (n=24). Spontaneous language samples were collected in Spanish and English for each participant and the recordings of the samples were transcribed and then coded. The coding process specifically analyzed errors of verb morphology that were categorized as an omission of an obligatory context, a substitution of a verb, auxiliary, or copula, an overregularization, or marked as a verb error. Results: The proportion of accurate verbs and the number of obligatory contexts was significantly higher in bilingual children with TD in comparison with children with DLD when both languages were taken into account or when the best language was used. Verb errors were more frequent in English than in Spanish. In Spanish, substitution errors were the most frequent type of error, while in English, verb tense errors were most common. Lastly, a large percentage of children with DLD made verb omission errors in both languages. Conclusion: Analysis of verb error type and frequency should be considered in the assessment of Spanish-English bilingual children to gather sufficient information about their language profile and determine accurate DLD diagnoses.Item Acoustic Analysis of the Voice in Native and Nonnative Speakers(2019-05) Procter, Teresa B.; Joshi, Ashwini; Goodin-Mayeda, Elizabeth; Cizek, LauraThere are significant differences in voice parameters for nonspeech tasks between culturally and linguistically diverse sample populations. Normative data of standard clinical software programs is typically comprised of North American speakers of Standard American English (SAE). There is a need for normative spectral and cepstral data across sociolinguistic groups to ensure clinical objective measurements are accurately classifying the voice quality of all individuals. The purpose of this study was to (1) compare objective measures of voice quality assessment of monolingual speakers of SAE with native speakers (L1) of French and Spanish on acoustic spectral and cepstral analyses; and (2) compare ratings on auditory-perceptual assessment with acoustic data secondary to degree of accentedness. Perceptual analyses and voice quality measures for frequency, cepstral measures, and perturbation measures were analyzed using the Analysis of Dysphonia in Speech and Voice (ADSV) and the MultiDimensional Voice Program (MDVP) in 10 L1 English, 10 L1 Spanish, 10 L1 French speakers. An informal measure of accentedness of SAE was performed. ANOVAs were included for identifying group differences in perceptual ratings and acoustic data, and the relationship between the degree of accentedness and CAPE-V scores. Results indicate relative accuracy of objective measures of voice assessment for multicultural clinical populations. In this study, two variables demonstrated significance for main effect of language, with 17 other variables of voice quality at minimum, approaching significance. Therefore, appropriate consideration of cultural competence is still warranted in therapeutic and diagnostic services.Item An Investigation of Speech Disfluencies of Bilingual Urdu-English(2020-05) Kabani, Aasia; Johnson, Kia N.; Irani, Farzan; Ntourou, KaterinaBilingual Urdu-English (UE) children who do not stutter (CWNS) are known to exceed the diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering based on monolingual English speakers during their developmental age. Because of this, this population is at a great risk of being misdiagnosed as children who stutter (CWS). The purpose of this current study is to examine the frequency and types of speech disfluencies in school-age bilingual Urdu-English (UE) children who do not stutter (CWNS) during narrative and conversational language samples. This study compared the frequency and types of speech disfluencies of Urdu-English (UE) CWNS to those of Spanish-English (SE) CWNS from Rincon, Johnson, and Byrd (2020) during narrative and conversational language samples. The current study was an expansion of Naqvi (2019) to include a larger sample of Urdu-English speaking children and address other limitations identified in this previous study. Participants included bilingual Urdu-English children (6 CWNS) ranging from 5 years to 7 years and 11 months that were recruited from the greater Houston, Texas area. Findings indicated that the current diagnostic criteria for developmental stuttering, which is based on Monolingual English Speakers, are not appropriate for bilingual Urdu-English CWNS. Findings suggests that across both U-E CWNS and S-E CWNS both met the diagnostic stuttering criteria of 3% stutter-like disfluencies per total number of words spoken for 2 of the 4 samples, in both narrative. Secondly, UE-CWNS presented with stuttering-like disfluencies that are based on repetition including sound syllable repetition and whole word repetition, as well as audible sound prolongation. Lastly, U-E CWNS and S-E CWNS both exhibited comparable types of speech disfluencies.Item Bilingualism and Children with Speech/Language Impairments: A Qualitative Study of Parents' Experiences(2019-05) Blanc, Camila; Castilla-Earls, Anny; Bunta, Ferenc; Gonzalez, Jorge E.Spanish-English bilingual parents are faced with the decision to select home and school language for their children. Parents often turn to clinicians and professionals for advice regarding language use and language development; this is particularly important for children who are receiving speech and language services. This study examines the advice received by Spanish-English bilingual parents of children ages eight through fourteen with and without language impairment, as well as the parent’s feelings towards their children’s current language use. Participants included 14 Spanish-speaking parents of typically developing (TD) children and 10 Spanish-speaking parents of children who are receiving/have received speech and language services. A qualitative approach with an online-questionnaire and a phone interview was used to conduct the study. Qualitative analysis was used to examine the outcomes by grouping commonalities expressed by parents into themes shared between participants. Findings suggest that parents in both groups received advice from speech-language pathologists (SLPs), teachers, doctors, and other family members/friends. A main theme regarding advice emerged: parents of children in both groups (TD and children who received/were receiving services) were often advised to continue bilingualism but in specific contexts (e.g., Spanish at home, English at school). Results indicate that Spanish-speaking parents in Houston view bilingualism as the ideal; however, their children tend to have a preference for English. Moreover, although parents in both groups are content with their children’s overall language development, they often wish their Spanish was stronger.Item Changes in Discourse Production Following Left Hemisphere Stroke(2018-05) Clark, Amanda; Maher, Lynn M.; Schnur, Tatiana T.; Thiessen, AmberDiscourse is any unit of connected speech longer than a sentence, organized sequentially and logically, to effectively communicate a group of ideas to a listener (Kong, 2016). Discourse can become impaired following injury to the brain, resulting in either acute impairments that get better over time, or residual chronic communication impairments (e.g., aphasia). This study used a modified multi-level analysis developed by Marini and colleagues (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015) comprised of microlinguistic and macrolinguistic variables to examine whether acute left hemisphere stroke patients experience deficits in discourse and how those deficits change over time as reorganization and recovery takes place. A picture naming task and a narrative retell task were administered to 16 patients at bedside acutely (2-7 days post stroke), then again sub-acutely (1-3 months post stroke), and the results of the discourse measures were compared with the data of 14 control subjects. Results indicated that 69% of our population had some type of discourse deficit acutely, either microlinguistic or macrolinguistic, compared with the data from controls. For our population at the acute stage, 69% of subjects showed deficits on macrolinguistic aspects of discourse, whereas 50% of subjects showed deficits on microlinguistic aspects of discourse, indicating that macrolinguistic deficits were more prevalent for our cohort. A subset of subjects demonstrated significant macrolinguistic deficits without the presence of microlinguistic deficits. These results support previous aphasia research stating that aphasia batteries may not be sensitive enough to detect subtle discourse deficits in this population. Results also indicated a relationship between lexical retrieval (picture naming) and cohesion for the acute population, but correlations did not hold at the sub-acute time point due to subjects performing at ceiling on the naming measure. These data are supportive of the need for multilevel analysis to examine changes in discourse and show that discourse deficits may be missed using traditional aphasia batteries which detect primarily microlinguistic variables.Item Clinical and Educational Profiles of College Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder(2019-08) Sotelo, Rachel Pearce; Ross, Byron L.; Ivey, Michelle L.; Mire, Sarah S.This study describes the development of descriptive clinical and educational profiles of college students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), in order to give insight for future research on factors impacting success in college and needs of students with ASD that universities should consider. Participants included 3 students with a diagnosis of ASD who were enrolled at a tier 1 university. Participation involved one visit to a speech language pathology clinic to obtain information regarding demographics, expressive and receptive language skills, pragmatic language skills, and executive function skills through the administration of questionnaires and assessments. Using the information collected, descriptive profiles were developed and compared to assess for similarities and differences. Results did not reveal a consistent profile of a college student with ASD, but consistencies in the exhibition of some deficits directly related to having a diagnosis of ASD were found. Potential implications for understanding how to foster successful college experience for students who have ASD are discussed.Item Clinical Voice Outcomes for Two Types of Voice Rest after Phonomicrosurgery(2022-05-09) Fan, Ruiqing; Joshi, Ashwini; Kulesz, Paulina A.; Daniels, Stephanie K.Voice rest (VR) is commonly recommended for patients following phonomicrosurgery. However, the growing body of voice rest literature has yet to identify the optimal type and duration of postsurgical voice rest programs. The current randomized prospective study compared the clinical outcomes of two different 7-day voice rest programs, complete voice rest (CVR) and relative voice rest (RVR), for patients with benign vocal fold lesions who received phonomicrosurgery. The outcomes were across three time points: pre-operation, 7-day post-operation, and 1-month post-operation. We hypothesized patients of the RVR group would have better clinical outcomes than patients of the CVR group across the time points. The clinical outcomes covered the acoustic, the aerodynamic, auditory-perceptual measurement (Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice), and patient-reported outcomes (Voice Handicap Index). The mixed model analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for analysis. While our results indicated no between-group differences, both groups demonstrated statistically significant improvement as reflected by the subglottal pressure, the overall severity ratings of CAPE-V, and the total scores of VHI. In addition, our results indicated that clinical outcomes did not differ by the type of voice rest program when the duration of the program was seven days.Item Code-switching in Bilingual Children With and Without Language Disorders(2021-05) Huels, Emma Eileen; Castilla-Earls, Anny; Gross, Megan C.; Mills, Monique T.Due to increasing linguistic diversity across caseloads in the United States, it is important for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to understand code-switching as it relates to typically developing children and children with language disorders. When analyzing language samples, SLPs may be unsure of how to analyze samples when code-switching is present. Because children with language disorders demonstrate difficulty with grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, this may impact the patterns of code-switching that we see in their everyday language. Much of the research on bilingualism involves typically developing children. This presents challenges when appropriately assessing bilingual children with language disorders or other communication deficits. This study aims to address code-switching as it relates to bilingual children with and without language disorders, to appropriately address ramifications for assessment and treatment.Item Communication Sciences and Disorders Students’ Attitudes About American Sign Language, English, and Deaf Culture(2020-08) Ramos, Gloria; Gietz, Merrilee R.; Goodin-Mayeda, Elizabeth; Pott, Scot; Ross, Byron L.; McIlraith, AutumnSpeech-language pathologists, who are considered experts for speech and language development of deaf children, often lack the training necessary to support the language development of deaf children (Brackett, 1997). Little research has been conducted on the attitudes of communication sciences and disorders (COMD) students towards ASL intervention and spoken English intervention for deaf children. Additionally, more research is needed on COMD students’ beliefs about Deaf culture and Deaf personhood. This study is a descriptive study using an online survey to collect data about what attitudes undergraduate COMD students hold regarding ASL, spoken English, and Deaf culture. Forty-eight students participated in the study. On average, students had favorable attitudes of ASL interventions for deaf children and slightly negative attitudes about spoken English interventions. Students also reported a more cultural view of Deaf personhood compared to a medical view on ten questions from the Attitudes About Deafness scale created by Cooper et al. (2004). Negative correlations were found between spoken English scores and Deaf culture scores, meaning that on average, the higher a student prioritized spoken English, the less positive views they had of Deaf culture. Students who had taken aural rehabilitation and/or audiology had significantly higher prioritization of spoken English interventions. Students who had taken an ASL class had significantly more positive views of Deaf culture. Understanding how COMD students view ASL, spoken English, and Deaf culture can provide valuable information on how to increase acceptance of signed languages and Deaf culture in the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology.Item Comparing Differences in Expressive Language Quantity and Quality between School-Aged Children Playing with Traditional and Electronic Toys(2017-05) Patel, Deepa Raj; Ivey, Michelle L.; Ross, Byron L.; LeVeaux-Haley, Christine S.Purpose: This preliminary study focuses on the expressive language of English-dominant, school-aged children playing with traditional and electronic toys. Method: Four English speaking children between the ages of 5;4 (year; month) and 8;9 were audio and video recorded during individual 20-minute sessions. Each played with age-appropriate toys of a favorite theme during two separate 20-minute sessions. Play sessions were formatted through random assignment of the type of toy (electronic or traditional) played with during each session. A language-sample analysis was conducted using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcriptions (SALT) software as well as manual calculations of targeted skills (total number of utterances, number of different words, topic maintenance, engagement, and topic initiation) to examine quantitative and qualitative comparisons of the language and interaction associated with each type of toy. Results: No notable differences were found in quantitative analysis after calculating data and qualitative analysis after interpreting language-samples. Aggregated total number of utterances and number of different words in play sessions comparing traditional versus electronic yielded similar results. Additionally, qualitative analysis considering engagement and initiation also indicated both types of toys produced relatively equivalent observations regarding discourse management. Conclusion: This preliminary study showed that play with neither the traditional nor electronic toy provided greater developmental benefits to typically developing school-aged children. Further studies should be conducted with a larger participant size in order to construct a more comprehensive conclusion regarding the effects of toy type on child language development.Item Context Effects on Sublexical Processing in Older and Younger Neurologically Typical Adults(2023-05-24) Dion, Angela; Dial, Heather R.; Maher, Lynn M.; Thesen, ThomasPast research has found that at the single word level, intact sublexical phonological processing is obligatory to access lexical-semantic representations when stimuli are closely matched in perceptual discriminability. Moreover, a variety of studies have demonstrated that processing may be influenced by contextual factors such as real word/non-word status, and sentence context. Older adults are susceptible to biased perception at the single word level, while younger adults are not, but sentence level context effects as a function of age have yet to be examined. This study examined processing differences between older and younger adults in sentence contexts via sentence frames that were semantically biased toward one word of a minimal pair by measuring participant response times. Participants listened to biased sentences, then a word appeared on a screen that did or did not match the final word of the sentence. Participants had to select if the words matched or did not match. Older adults exhibited longer response times than younger adults, specifically in sentences with semantically incongruent audio. Younger adults were less sensitive to semantic context bias, with faster response times than older adults across sentence conditions. Younger adults were more influenced by the matching/non-matching status of words, rather than incongruent sentence audio. We suspect cognitive changes associated with typical healthy aging are responsible for the differences observed between age groups. While younger adults leveraged increased cognitive control such as fluid intelligence, increased attention, increased response inhibition, and reliance on the acoustic signal to support rapid processing of stimuli, older adults were more reliant on crystallized intelligence and world knowledge. This resulted in older adults having longer response times overall, particularly in incongruent sentence contexts. These differences relate to known cognitive changes that occur in typical healthy aging, such as decreased attention and decreased response inhibition. The findings of this study and future studies using the same tasks with individuals with aphasia have implications for how semantic context may be manipulated to influence or support sublexical phonological processing in people with aphasia. The current study may provide evidence for the development of new assessments or treatments for auditory comprehension deficits.Item Current Practices of Speech-Language Pathologists for Those with Right Hemisphere Damage(2018-12) Ramsey, Ashley Nicole; Blake, Margaret Lehman; Thiessen, Amber; Ramos, Miguel A.This study was conducted to obtain a snapshot of current clinical practices of practicing Speech-Language Pathologists that work with people who have developed deficits associated with right hemisphere brain damage after a stroke. Currently licensed SLPs were recruited via online resources and were directed to a link containing a survey that targeted their most common tools for assessment, most common treatment approaches, the rationale behind their choices, their opinion on the adequacy of their available tools, and their confidence levels in correctly diagnosing deficits. A total of 143 SLPs responded, a response rate of approximately 11%. Results indicated that observation was the most common tool to diagnose specific deficits areas, the Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT) was the most commonly used test battery for assessment, and the most widely selected rationale behind test selection was administration time. Common treatment approaches for selected deficit areas were also obtained. The majority of SLPs indicated that they did not feel their tools for assessment were adequate but were highly confident that they were correct in their diagnoses. Small, but significant correlations existed between confidence levels and adequacy of tools as well as the type of college courses taken for RHD and the years since graduation.Item Development of a Hindi Version of Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V)(2019-05) Baheti, Isha; Joshi, Ashwini; Maher, Lynn M.; Tiwari, BhavyaObjective: The purpose of the current study was to develop a Hindi version of the Consensus of Auditory Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V), a tool for speech language pathologists to assess voice quality and degree of hoarseness. The Hindi version of the CAPE-V will be vital in voice assessments conducted in India and across the world for Hindi speaking individuals. Method: The Hindi stimuli matched the original CAPE-V in terms of sentence types and sounds tested. Data were collected in two groups- the first in English and Hindi in bilingual speakers (16 males and 15 females) with normal voice quality. The CAPE-V ratings in both languages were compared to assess the validity of the Hindi version. The second group consisted of 13 Hindi speakers (10 males, 3 females) with disordered voice quality. The ratings in the Hindi CAPE-V were also compared to the GRBAS scale (Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, and Strain) as it is the current standard of care in India. Results: A strong correlation was found between the Hindi CAPE-V scores and the English CAPE-V scores in overall severity, roughness, breathiness, and pitch (r>. 0.5, p< .01) in normal participants. A weak correlation was found between the English and Hindi versions for the variable of strain (r<.3, p= .439) in the normative group. A strong correlation (r>. 0.5, p< .01) was found between the overall severity/grade, roughness, and breathiness scores in GRBAS scale and the CAPE-V scale in normal and disordered voice samples. Significant interrater reliability (r> .75) in overall severity and breathiness was noted. Conclusion: The Hindi CAPE-V can be administered reliably to evaluate features of voice quality in Hindi.Item EFFECTIVENESS OF GIST REASONING TRAINING IN IMPROVING DISCOURSE, VERBAL REASONING, AND GENERAL COGNITIVE PROCESSES IN AN ADULT WITH RIGHT-HEMISPHERE DAMAGE(2016-05) Richardson, Casey K.; Blake, Margaret Lehman; Thiessen, Amber; Ott, Summer D.There is limited research investigating treatments targeted at remediating cognitive-communicative deficits associated with right hemisphere damage. This single case study investigated the efficacy of using a gist-based approach with an adult in the chronic stage of recovery from right-hemisphere damage. After treatment, the participant made gains in some aspects of verbal reasoning, sustained attention, and perceived communicative ability. However, results indicated no global improvement in cognition. Gains in verbal reasoning and sustaining attention were maintained up to six weeks after treatment ended. The results suggest that this gist-based treatment approach is feasible for improving verbal reasoning individuals with RHD. Remediation of deficits in this area is of importance to the individuals with RHD as well as their families and friends because understanding each other’s stories and ideas is an important aspect of our communication.Item Examination Of Speech Disfluencies In The Story Generation Narratives Of Bidialectal Children(2021-05) Starling, Emily Marie; Johnson, Kia N.; Mills, Monique T.; Daniels, Derek E.As language use in the US continues to expand and diversify, concerns have arisen regarding the use of diagnostic criteria for stuttering that were created based on monolingual English-speaking norms. Specifically, research has already revealed that bilingual Spanish-English speaking children are at an increased risk for misdiagnosis of stuttering. The purpose of this study was to determine if bidialectal children who speak African American English (AAE) and Mainstream American English (MAE) are at that same risk. We hypothesized that bidialectal children would speak with a greater frequency and variety of speech disfluencies in their story generation narratives. The story generation narratives of children who speak with no variation (monodialectal), some variation (bidialectal), and strong variation (monodialectal) from MAE were coded for speech disfluencies and analyzed for statistical significance between the three groups. No statistically significant differences were found between any group in the amount or variety of speech disfluencies. This suggests that bidialectal children are not at an increased risk for misdiagnosis of stuttering, and current diagnostic criteria is appropriate for use with this population.Item Examining the Presentation of Speech Disfluencies in Story Generation Narrative Samples of Bidialectal Children(2020-05) Walker, Chenelle Lee; Johnson, Kia N.; Mills, Monique T.; Daniels, Derek E.Bilingualism affects fluency resulting in increased disfluencies when compared to monolingual speakers (Coalson, Pena, & Byrd, 2013). However, little is known about the impact of speech fluency when speaking two dialects, also referred to as bidialectalism (Lanehart, 2015; Lee-James & Washington, 2018). Johnson and Mills (2019) examined the speech disfluencies of bidialectal children during a story retell paradigm. Findings suggested that unlike bilingual Spanish-English speaking children, bidialectal children who do not stutter (CWNS) did not exceed or meet the criteria used to diagnosis developmental stuttering in children. However, story retell tasks do not necessarily mimic conversational speech which means that this could still be an issue for bidialectal children based on other forms of communication. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of speech disfluencies exhibited during story generation narrative samples of bidialectal children who are classified as having (1) no variation from Mainstream American English (MAE), (2) some variation from MAE, and (3) strong variation from MAE as determined by the DELV. The subset of 42 African American (AA) participants (male=20, female=22; ages= 88-144 months) from Johnson & Mills (2019) were split into three groups: no variation from MAE (n=15), some variation (n=6), and strong variation (n=21). Findings indicate that all three of the talker groups exceeded 3% of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs). Additionally, all groups presented with blocks and prolongations similar to children who stutter (CWS). This suggests that the communication style of AA culture, not dialect may be related to fluency.Item Heading and Cognitive Performance in Female Collegiate Soccer Players(2013-05) Sobel, Dorian; Blake, Margaret Lehman; Daniels, Stephanie K.; Ott, Summer D.There is conflicting information about the safety of heading by soccer players because of the potential deleterious effects of accumulated subconcussive blows. The purpose of this study is to examine whether there are short-term or longer-term cognitive effects of repeated subconcussive impacts in collegiate female soccer players. The relationship between number of headers and cognitive processing was examined in collegiate female soccer players over the course of a typical soccer season. Analyses revealed no significant changes in cognitive function across the soccer season for the athletes as individuals or as a group. Results suggest that frequency of headers do not have a measurable impact on cognitive performance.Item Influence of Examiner Dialect on a Bidialectal Speaker with Aphasia(2021-08) Guess, Kennedy Kehaulani; Maher, Lynn M.; Mills, Monique T.; Oetting, Janna B.This study investigated whether there was an impact of examiner’s dialect on the quantity and quality of narrative discourse in a bidialectal African American with mild aphasia. We hypothesized that there may be a cognitive cost when responding to the examiner by code switching from African American English (AAE) to General American English (GAE) for bidialectal people with aphasia. We elicited story retell and personal narratives on two separate occasions under two conditions: one where the examiner spoke exclusively using GAE and the other where the examiner spoke exclusively in AAE. These narratives were analyzed for differences in the density of nonmainstream forms of AAE, amount of verbal output, local cohesion errors, and information content. There was a higher density of nonmainstream forms of AAE overall in the personal narrative task in both conditions as opposed to the story retell task. In addition to the density of nonmainstream forms of AAE, there was also a difference in the variety and the type of nonmainstream forms of AAE produced. While there were no substantial differences between the two conditions with respect to the amount of information conveyed, there were observable differences in the quality of the narratives, specifically an increase in local cohesion errors in the GAE condition. The results of this study suggest it may be important to consider the impact of task demands and linguistic context on narrative discourse in bidialectal people with aphasia.Item Influence of Lexical Versus Procedural Knowledge in Sentence Production in Response to Thematic Role Assignment Treatment(2017-05) Kazhuro, Katsiaryna; Maher, Lynn M.; Schnur, Tatiana T.; Blake, Margaret LehmanWe tested whether one source of variability in treatment response and generalization for sentence production (Mitchum, Greenwald, & Berndt, 2000; Rochon, Laird, & Scofield, 2000) in individuals with non-fluent agrammatic aphasia is a deficit in the ability to assign thematic roles (procedural mapping). We propose that agrammatic individuals with better lexical verb retrieval abilities have a procedural mapping deficit (Schwartz, Saffran, Fink, Myers, & Martin, 1994; Marshall, 1995), and, therefore, demonstrate better response and generalization to treatment which focuses on the procedural assignment of thematic roles. In contrast, we hypothesized agrammatic individuals with poorer lexical verb retrieval abilities have a lexical mapping deficit and exhibit worse treatment outcomes and generalization of treatment. Fifteen right-handed, monolingual English-speaking adult males and females who had unilateral left hemisphere CVAs with subsequent chronic non-fluent aphasia and no co-morbid neurologic impairments participated in this study. All participants had agrammatism as confirmed by their poor performance during production of passive reversible verb sentences at baseline (≤30% accuracy). Verb retrieval, as measured by the Action Naming Test (Obler & Albert, 1986), and active sentence comprehension, as measured by the active sentences on the Circles and Squares Syntactic Comprehension Test, (adopted from Schwartz, Saffran, & Martin, 1980) served as indicators of lexical and procedural mapping abilities, respectively. The dependent variables were treatment response, as determined by sentence production to picture stimuli using correct thematic role assignment, and treatment generalization, as measured by the non-treated sentence production using correct thematic role assignment. In order to examine the relationship between verb retrieval and active sentence comprehension correlation analysis was used. Linear regression was used to determine the strength of the relationship between the independent variables (severity of the type of mapping deficit) and dependent variables (treatment outcomes), while considering the potential impacts of overall aphasia severity and age. The analyses revealed no significant correlation between verb retrieval and active reversible sentence comprehension (r=0.417, p =.122) suggesting these two measures test separate stages of sentence processing. We found overall aphasia severity as indicated by the Western Aphasia Battery A.Q. (Kertesz, 1982) correlated with verb retrieval (r=0.781, p=.001) and active sentence comprehension (r=0.653, p=.008), suggesting that overall aphasia severity considers linguistic impairments captured by both verb retrieval and active sentence comprehension measures. Overall aphasia severity was the main predictor of treatment response (R²=.382), whereas age was not correlated with either treatment response (r=-0.18, p=.53) or generalization (r=-0.15, p=.60), which is consistent with the literature (Pederson, Vinter, & Olsen, 2004; Plowman, Hentz, & Ellis, 2011). Verb retrieval, however, was the only statistically significant predictor of treatment generalization (R²=.351). Our results demonstrate that better mapping treatment outcomes are predicted by relatively preserved verb retrieval, where individuals with poor verb retrieval demonstrate treatment specific gains but no treatment generalization. However, individuals who can access the lexical representation of the verb for further processing demonstrate not only a positive treatment response, but also a generalized response suggesting procedural re-learning of the process of thematic role assignment.