Mandarin is a tone language that is spoken by billions of people in the world. Despite huge demand, there is a lack of assessment and treatment tools targeting Mandarin speakers with communication disorders. To better understand the speech profile of Mandarin speakers with communication disorders, this dissertation first examined contrastive…

Arab Americans are a growing population in the United States. According to the Arab American Institute (2012), their number has reached 3.6 million. In spite of this, there is a scarcity of research exploring this population and the issues related to the area of speech-language pathology. This study explored Arabic-speaking SLPs' perceptions of…

This study examined the effect of a 1-day, 6-hour key word signing (KWS) workshop on in-service special education teachers' and speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) (a) skill identifying American Sign Language (ASL) signs; (b) skill producing ASL signs; (c) use of KWS in the classroom or therapy room; and (d) perceived changes from taking part in…

The fast pace and relative ease at which individuals with typical language acquire and use words belie the complexity and vulnerability of lexical representation development (i.e., word learning) and lexical-semantic processing. Lexical-semantic processing impairments are common in both developmental and acquired communication disorders and, even…

Caregiver-implemented communication intervention can result in increased communication skills in young children. Parents/caregivers are the first teachers of their children and are in natural positions to provide naturalistic communication intervention throughout their child's daily life within their home. Professionals who work with young…

Younger biological siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (sibs-ASD) are at a heightened risk for developing communication disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder or language impairment. Two strategies that are theoretically motivated as potentially beneficial for sibs-ASD are follow-in comments and providing input in episodes of…

The purpose of this study was to identify the ways that seniors in undergraduate programs in speech, language, and hearing sciences engaged with the department as they entered into their undergraduate programs, the factors that they considered when deciding whether to apply to graduate school in speech-language pathology, and perceptions of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a cross-cultural clinical experience in the Dominican Republic on communication disorders graduate students. Ethical practice requires an awareness and understanding of one's own perspectives and values and beliefs and awareness of cultural differences that arise when providing cross-cultural…

Higher education in the United States does not effectively meet the needs of diverse learners due to the persistence of lecture-based teaching methods (Dosch & Zidon, 2014; Ernst & Ernst, 2005; Jorgensen & Brogaard, 2021; Turner et al., 2017). Evidenced by this overreliance on the lecture-based model is the rise of students required to…

Educators have increasingly incorporated technology tools such as the iPad into classroom learning. Available evidence suggests the potential efficacy of the iPad, but the attitudes and beliefs of parental stakeholders have often been omitted from empirical studies. There was a need to better understand parents' attitudes about adoption of the…

Research has identified language impairment as a pervasive disability (Bishop & Edmundson, 1987; Greenhalgh & Strong, 2001). Classroom communication behaviors have a role in the maintenance of special education eligibility and functional communication difficulties for young children with language impairment. This paper reviews the…

This project examines spoken language comprehension in Broca's aphasia, a non-fluent language disorder acquired subsequent to stroke. Broca's aphasics demonstrate impaired comprehension for complex sentence constructions. To account for this deficit, one current processing theory claims that Broca's patients retain intrinsic linguistic knowledge,…

This study examined the characteristics of 14 English Language Learners classified as having learning disabilities (LD) who were also identified as having speech and language impairments (SI) prior to, at, or after initial identification as LD. Data were collected under the auspices of a longitudinal study, Bilingual Exceptional Students:…

Very little is known about language and communication development in minimally verbal children with autism, especially those who remain minimally verbal past the age of five. This population is rarely reported on in research and although there is evidence that some children do learn to speak after the age of five, we lack information on the course…

This dissertation study explored the efficacy of the SpeechEasy[R] device for individuals who are gainfully employed stutterers and who participated in workplace education learning activities. This study attempted to fill a gap in the literature regarding efficacy of the SpeechEasy[R] device. It employed a qualitative multiple unit case study…