Facilities

The BGSU Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders is housed within the Health Center Building. Research facilities include a language lab, stroboscopy lab, voice production lab, acoustics lab, aero-acoustics lab, and a speech physiology lab, in addition to clinical spaces that can be used for research purposes.

We have dedicated teaching laboratories, intended to infuse science and technology throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Contained within the laboratories are four workstations (respiration, phonation, articulation, and acoustics) containing various instrumentation (This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 9851123* and matching funds provided by BGSU).

The teaching laboratories are also used for research training, and undergraduate and graduate level laboratory sessions. This space is used by students and faculty for research projects and seminar classes. The room is equipped with acoustic analysis stations, two Nasometers, a Palatometer, a respitrace, a spirometer, and various anatomical models.

There are four soundproof booths that can be used for data collection in sound isolated environments.

Current Research

The following is an overview of lines of research in progress in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders. For more information on any particular line of research, please follow the links to faculty members' pages.

Auditory Processing Capabilities of Typical Adults.

There is experimental evidence that many college students have language and reading difficulties. Also, there is anecdotal evidence that many adults have reduced phonological awareness abilities. Very often, students enrolled in a basic phonetics course have major problems when learning to identify lexical stress, and when learning to transcribe the segmental aspects of spoken English. This line of research is aimed at attempting to systematically evaluate college students' abilities in spoken and receptive language skills, as well as evaluate their phonological awareness and auditory processing capabilities. Researchers: Larry Small, Laura Dilley, and Lynne Hewitt.

Infant Cry Analysis.

Comparisons have been made between full-term and pre-term infant cries, to infer, from the acoustic signal, if there are any neurological differences between the infants. Work has been recently published examining an infant with laryngomalacia as well as other healthy infants. Current research is examining the effect of positioning on healthy infants, as an attempt to examine possible risk factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Researcher: Alexander Goberman.

Language of Kindergarten Children with and without SLI.

In this project, language samples collected on over 200 kindergarten children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) are transcribed and analyzed. A primary goal of this project is to discover which language sample measures can best identify language impairment. Other goals include description of lexical and pragmatic variables that distinguish children with SLI from their peers. The SALT language sample analysis program is used to transcribe and assist in analyzing samples. Researcher: Lynne Hewitt. This project is being carried out in collaboration with Carol Hammer (Penn State University), and Kristine Yont (Harvard University).

Maternal Speech to Infants with and without Hearing Loss.

Very little is known about the linguistic development of language in infants with hearing loss, particularly for those with cochlear implants. For normal-hearing children, the quality of maternal speech input is known to play a role in language development. In an NIH/NIDCD-funded research project, we are actively investigating how acoustic and phonetic properties of maternal speech influence the development of speech and language skills in infants with hearing loss, as well as normal-hearing infants. Researcher: Laura Dilley.

Naturalistic Language Assessment and Intervention for Children with Autism

Assessment studies focus on examining videos of naturalistic interactions of children, peers and adults to describe patterns of communicative success and failure. A primary emphasis involves qualitative investigation of pragmatic language variables, especially spontaneous communicative attempts. Intervention studies follow up in this area using single subject experimental and descriptive designs to establish effectiveness of naturalistic approaches to language intervention for children with autism. Videotapes of children’s language are collected to establish baseline, and then a particular area is selected for intervention. Videos of intervention are collected and transcribed to track progress. Two areas of particular theoretical significance investigated in these projects are joint attention and commenting, seen as keys to communicative competence in persons with autism. Researcher: Lynne Hewitt.

New Word Learning: Acquisition and Initial Representations

Young children are amazing in their abilities to learn new words that they overhear in adult speech. They are are really good at doing this with nouns and descriptive words. However, verbs appear to be more difficult. This program of research is designed to compare the abilities of children at different ages to learn new verbs from incidental exposure. We are also interested in determining the initial representations that children form when learning new verbs and how those compare to adult representations. Researcher: Tim Brackenbury.

Normal Speech Variability

Normal speech within and across talkers is highly variable acoustically. Researchers are actively investigating the nature of this variability and how listeners deal with it. One line of research is to examine intra- and inter-day changes in normal speech production across a range of ages, in addition to the effect of anxiety on speech in a variety of situations (Researcher: Alexander Goberman). Another line of research focuses on variability in phonemic pronunciation, as well as in pitch and timing, and how listeners compensate for this variability (Researcher: Laura Dilley).

Occupational stereotyping of people who stutter.

The goal of this research is to examine the perceptions people have of appropriate career choices for people who stutter and their beliefs regarding other employment issues for people who stutter. The primary investigator for this research is Rodney Gabel.

Oral Vibrotactile Sensation and Perception

Oral sensation and perception are systematically studied using vibration as the stimulus and utilizing various psychophysical procedures. Studies look at instrumentation, procedural, and subject variables on the oral tactile sensory system at both threshold and suprathreshold levels. Changes in lingual sensory thresholds are documented as a function of gender, age, and various subject characteristics. Cross-modality studies document the role and importance of the integrity of the feedback systems in speech production. Modality interruption studies are investigating the importance of various modalities on speech production. Studies are also being conducted on the status of the oral sensory system in individuals with various speech disorders. Researcher: Linda Petrosino.

Parkinsonian Speech Analysis

This line of research is aimed at determining the effect of dopamine on speech function.  Specifically, the effect of dopamine changes on speech production is being examined in patients with Parkinson Disease (PD). Work is in progress to determine the relationship between non-speech motor variability and speech variability in PD, in addition to examinations into factors affecting variability of Parkinsonian speech. Researcher: Alexander Goberman.  (See Parkinson Disease Research Page)

The Personal Stories of Stuttering Project

The purpose of this study is to explore the life experiences of people who stutter, especially related to their experiences with therapy and coping with the disorder. This qualitative study will incorporate a survey and interviews with a large group of individuals who stutter.  Researcher: Rod Gabel

Psychosocial Aspects of Child Speech and Language Impairment

I am interested in the link between communication disorders in children and social deficits. Research suggests that many speech and language impaired children have fewer friendships and poorer social skills than age-matched classmates  In addition, they report less satisfaction with the peer relationships they do have and are often less respected than their classmates with normal speech and language. My research is designed to explore these social deficits with an ultimate goal of evolving treatment procedures for the reduction of negative social outcomes. Researcher: Elizabeth Burroughs

Quality of Life Issues in adults with a variety of communication disorders

This research is beling conducted with Jeff Searl (University of Kansas Medical Center). We are interested in developing models for understanding quality of life from the perspective of the individual with a communication disorder. This reesarch will incorporate both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Researcher: Rod Gabel

Quality of Life Issues in Children's Communication Disorders

I am planning research that will look at the extent to which impaired communication in children is associated with reduced quality of life. Current theory suggests that self esteem is a potential index of quality of life in children. I will be determining the relationship between communicative competence and self esteem. Ultimately, I would like to evolve a means of assessing treatment efficacy in terms of improved quality of life. Researcher: Elizabeth Burroughs

Speech Perception: Acoustic and Perceptual Cues

The research in this area focuses on the acoustic attributes of the speech stream that normal listeners use during speech perception. Two areas of study are currently being investigated:

• The acoustic cues associated with fluent speech perception. This line of study attempts to identify specific segmental and suprasegmental acoustic cues listeners use in the word recognition process. Researchers: Laura Dilley and Larry Small.
  
• The acoustic attributes that listeners use to differentiate gender differences in tracheoesophageal speakers. Researcher: Larry Small.

Teaching word learning strategies to struggling readers.

A great deal of attention has been given to fostering phonological awareness and alphabetic decoding skills in young children struggling with reading. However, phonological awareness and alphabetic knowledge is not enough for children in the intermediate grades. Older children need strategies for decoding multisyllabic and morphologically-complex words, and they need to learn how to make meaning from these words to help them in their overall comprehension of text. We are currently studying the effectiveness of different interventions aimed at promoting word reading and comprehension skills in struggling readers in the middle-elementary grades. Researcher: Lauren A. Katz.

Summer Program for Enhancing Language and Literacy: SPELL

SPELL is a collaborative effort between the Department of Communication Disorders (CDIS) at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) and a public elementary school in a neighboring small town. We developed SPELL with four goals in mind: 1) to enrich phonological awareness skills, selected grapheme-phoneme correspondence skills, vocabulary and world knowledge, and narrative comprehension skills of exiting kindergarten students at-risk for reading difficulties; 2) to provide services to under-served, at-risk children in their home school district; 3) to provide a clinical practicum in which graduate students in the CDIS program at BGSU would receive experience and training in providing group therapy in the area of literacy to early elementary students; and 4) to provide these graduate students with a model for using and contributing to evidence-based practice. The SPELL program was implemented in summer 2007, and we are analyzing and continuing to collect data from our participants as well as controls. Researchers: Lauren A. Katz, Laura Schrock, Elizabeth Burroughs

Treatment outcomes of intensive stuttering therapy.

The research includes the development of a model for exploring multiple effects of treatment for individuals who attend our summer intensive clinic for stuttering. For more information about the intensive stuttering clinic, and other stuttering services, please follow this link. Researcher: Rod Gabel.

Written Language & the School-Based SLP

Literacy skills are critical for academic success and later professional and vocational opportunities. However, as many as 37% of the nation’s fourth-graders are reading below the basic level, and 69% of fourth-grade children are reading below the proficient level (NCES, 2003). SLPs have been added to the list of personnel who are responsible for addressing the written language needs of language impaired students. Yet, many challenges facing SLPs in school settings: 1) effectively managing large caseloads ; 2) effectively providing services in the classroom; and 3) preserving their identities as highly skilled professionals. A study by Janota (2004) suggested that school-based SLPs are not successfully implementing written language goals and activities into their service provision. Though researchers have provided suggestions for addressing this problem, to date, there are no studies that offer empirical data to support these recommendations .

This on-going national survey study seeks to examine the discrepancies between ASHA guidelines for the provision of written language services and school-based SLPs’ current clinical practices in this area. We are currently analyzing data from 717 school-based SLPs to learn more about their knowledge about written language; their attitudes and beliefs about providing services for written language needs; their written language practices; their collaborative work with teachers in the area of literacy; and the factors they perceive as barriers and facilitators to effective written language service provision. Researcher: Lauren A. Katz