Browsing by Author "Corwin, Melinda D."
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Item Characteristics of utterances produced by persons with dementia living in a long-term care facility: Lexical diversity, message clarity, and influence of conversational partners(2011-05) Rochester, Tarah B.; Corwin, Melinda D.; Owen, Donna; Perry, Carolyn; Aoyama, KatsuraThe language of persons with dementia has been studied in the past, but rarely in the natural context of conversation. The purpose of this study was to examine lexical diversity and message clarity of language produced by persons with dementia during conversational interactions and the influence of conversational partners, if any, on their language characteristics. Six case studies were used to describe the language of people with dementia. Participants were also divided into two groups based on whether or not their communication partner had been trained. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were performed. The following lexical diversity variables were measures: noun rate, pronoun rate, adjective rate, and verb rate. Additionally, Brunét's index, Honoré's statistic, and type-token ratio were also calculated to quantify vocabulary richness. The following message clarity variables were measured in percentages: utterances with a verbal maze, unfinished utterances, fully unintelligible utterances, partially unintelligible utterances, utterances with an inappropriate topic shift, and pronouns with a clear referent. Results revealed that persons with dementia produced more pronouns compared to other content words. Some participants produced language that was lexically rich while others did not. Measures of message clarity varied across participants. There were no significant differences between trained and untrained conversation partner groups on any of the measures. Qualitative analyses revealed some communication partner techniques that seemed to enhance language production in persons with dementia. This study identified some lexical diversity and message clarity measure that could be obtained from a brief conversational language sample and used to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of persons with dementia. Additionally, the study provided insight regarding the contribution of conversational partners to the language of persons with dementia.Item Diagnostic accuracy in motor speech disorders: an application of signal detection theory(Texas Tech University, 2004-05) Whitaker, Melissa C.; Bogschutz, Renee J.; Schmitt, Mary B.; Aoyama, Kastura; Corwin, Melinda D.The results of this study indicated that participants accurately and reliably differentiated normal from abnormal speech samples. Thus, all groups proficiently identified disordered cases while limiting the number of misdiagnoses; however, some degree of task difficulty was noted and clinical biases were evident. For this research question, group trends indicated that the most experienced group of participants adopted a more lenient diagnostic criterion as compared to the intermediate and novice groups.Item Distribution of stutterings among speech acts(Texas Tech University, 1989-05) Corwin, Melinda D.The purpose of this study was to describe the distribution of stutterings among speech acts. Ten adult stutterers engaged in conversational tasks designed to naturally encourage production of Representatives, Expressives, Commissives, Directives, and Questions. The total number of speech acts (i.e., utterances) containing stuttered speech was determined, as was the total number of stuttered words within each speech act. A nonparametric statistic was used to test for significance. Results indicated that, as a group, stutterings were distributed equally among speech acts, although the performance of some subjects suggests a clinically relevant speech act-stuttering connection.Item Effects of multiple oral reading with explicit teaching on reading rate and accuracy for persons with acquired alexia(2013-05) Cox, Andrea; Corwin, Melinda D.; Koul, Rajinder; Perry, CarolynFor adults with chronic aphasia and alexia, repeated reading improves reading rate, and explicit teaching improves reading accuracy. These two reading treatments have not been combined with adults; however, repeated reading and explicit instruction have been combined in studies with children to increase oral reading fluency (rate and accuracy). This study involved a single subject multiple baseline design across three adult participants with acquired aphasia and alexia. A combined multiple oral reading with explicit teaching treatment was used for the purpose of improving reading fluency. Results revealed increased reading rates across all participants, yet no change in reading accuracy as a result of treatment. Further, improvements were achieved within a small number of treatment sessions in persons who are several years post onset of aphasia and alexia. Clinically, rapid improvements in oral reading rate may be achieved for persons with acquired alexia using multiple oral reading paired with explicit teaching.Item Investigation of Resource Allocation in Persons with Aphasia for AAC-Related Tasks(Texas Tech University, 2011-08) Petroi, Diana; Koul, Rajinder; Corwin, Melinda D.; Dembowski, James; Aoyama, Katsura; O'Boyle, MichaelThis study investigated resource allocation abilities in persons with aphasia (PWA) in the presence and absence of competing stimuli across a series of experimental tasks that involved identifying and selecting single symbols and subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences on a speech generating device (SGD). Participants included 10 individuals with Broca’s aphasia and a group of 10 typical individuals matched on assigned variables. A mixed-group design was used to compare the performance of the two groups on single symbol and SVO sentence accuracy and response latency measures. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that PWA accurately identified significantly (p <.01) fewer single symbols and SVO sentences in comparison to matched control participants. Additionally, number of symbols per screen and level of location of symbols had a significant effect (p <.01) on accuracy of responses for both groups. Furthermore, there was a significant (p <.05) interaction between the listening condition and group variables, indicating that competing stimuli have the potential to slow down the processing of information for PWA. Analysis of response latencies indicated that PWA exhibited longer response latencies across all three listening conditions in contrast to control participants. A significant negative correlation (p <.05) was observed between accuracy of responses for the single symbol and SVO sentence tasks and perceptual ratings of task difficulty. In summary, the results of this study indicate that effective and efficient use of SGDs by PWA depends upon several vocabulary organization factors such as the number of symbols on a screen and the specific location of a symbol across several screens. These results suggest that researchers and clinicians may need to consider organizing vocabulary on SGDs in such a manner as to reduce the cognitive demands placed on PWA.Item Selective auditory attention in adults: Effects of rhythmic structure of the competing language(Texas Tech University, 2009-08) Reel, Leigh A.; Hicks, Candace; Bogschutz, Renee J.; Corwin, Melinda D.; Martinez, Sylvia; Zupancic, StevenResearch to date has provided limited evidence related to how selective auditory attention is affected by: 1) differences between the vocal and/or speaking characteristics of different masking talkers and 2) rhythmic properties of the language of the competing (or masking) speech signal. The current study addressed these gaps in existing research by measuring sentence reception thresholds (sSRTs) for 50 monolingual English-speaking adults in conditions where the competing speech was spoken in a language with a stress-based rhythm (i.e., English or German), a syllable-based rhythm (i.e., Spanish or French), or a mora-based rhythm (i.e., Japanese) (Abercrombie, 1967; Pike, 1945; both as cited in Nazzi, Jusczyk, & Johnson, 2000). In all conditions, the target speech signal consisted of meaningful English sentences spoken by a male talker; whereas, the competing speech signal consisted of continuous speech from 1 male and 1 female native speaker of the language assigned to that condition. For each language, 2 different 2-talker masking signals were created (i.e., labeled Masker A and Masker B), with a different male-female pair of native speakers used for each signal. An average sSRT was obtained in 10 types of competing speech conditions, including 1 Masker A condition and 1 Masker B condition for each of the 5 languages. Analysis of results revealed that for each language, there was a significant difference between subjects’ performance in the Masker A and Masker B conditions. These findings suggest that the vocal/speaking characteristics of different mixed-gender 2-talker maskers (i.e., 1 male and 1 female masking talker) can provide different degrees of masking effectiveness, regardless of whether the masking talkers are speaking the listeners’ native language or an unfamiliar language. A significant effect of the language of the competing speech was also seen, with significantly greater listening difficulty associated with conditions where the competing speech was spoken in English, German, or Japanese, as compared to Spanish or French. This pattern of results leads to 2 primary conclusions: 1) the underlying rhythmic structure of the language of the competing speech has a greater impact on masking effectiveness than the meaning of the competing speech, and 2) competing speech spoken in a language from the listener’s native rhythmic category (i.e., stress-based) is more difficult to ignore than competing speech spoken in a language from a non-native rhythmic category (i.e., syllable-based), at least for some languages. Together, these results extend the findings of previous studies by providing evidence that exposure to the rhythm of the native language affects not only how a listener processes speech in quiet (e.g., Cutler, Mehler, Norris, & Segui, 1983; Sebastián-Gallés, Dupoux, Costa, & Mehler, 2000), but also how he/she processes a target speech signal in the presence of speech from 2 masking talkers.Item Stressors and strengths in families of adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)(Texas Tech University, 2006-12) Corwin, Melinda D.; Mulsow, Miriam; Feng, Du; Bell, Nancy J.; Bean, Roy A.The present study explored issues related to adolescents with ADHD and the families in which they belong from a developmental contextual and lifespan perspective. Both deficits- and strengths-based approaches were used to investigate parental perceptions of family stressors and available family resources; and individual family members' (adolescents with ADHD, mothers, fathers, and sibling adolescents) perceptions of positive and negative family characteristics and feelings relative to ADHD. Additionally, the target adolescents’ perspectives on the meaning of ADHD in their lives and personal and family resources and strengths were examined. Forty adolescents diagnosed with some form of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and their household family members (mother, father, and/or adolescent sibling) participated. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to analyze family-level data. Results revealed that the number of family members with ADHD did not significantly affect all family members' reports of general family stressors, strains, and distress; however, it did significantly affect reports from mothers in terms of perceived family resources and opinions specific to ADHD: Mothers (but not fathers) reported significantly more resources when only the target adolescent had ADHD and fewer resources when additional family members had the disorder. Also, mothers reported more non-supportive factors, such as teachers and relatives not understanding ADHD, when more than one member of the family had ADHD. Additionally, fathers reported more supportive factors, such as adolescents being creative, when only one member of the family had ADHD. The adolescents with ADHD perceived their own strengths as getting along well with others, having high energy levels, and/or being involved with music. By using a mixed research design, the present study integrated quantitative and qualitative information to provide a better understanding of the hassles that adolescents with ADHD encounter, as well as the resources and strengths they use to meet their environmental challenges at this particular point along their developmental paths.