Date of Graduation

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders (MS)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders

Advisor/Mentor

Glade, Rachel

Committee Member

Bowers, Lisa M.

Second Committee Member

Bowers, Andrew

Keywords

Colorful Semantics; Hearing Loss; Intervention; Literacy; Semantics; Teletherapy

Abstract

Introduction: Hearing loss, deafness or hard of hearing are considered to be the inabilityof perceiving sounds beyond 20 dB. Due to a direct impact of a hearing loss, a developing brain undergoes difficulties in acquiring age-appropriate syntax and speech sounds. As a result, children with hearing loss present language, speech, and literacy disabilities. The current study discusses the efficacy of the colorful semantics approach in order to see its impact on sentence structure development. Methodology: A single subject withdrawal experimental study conducted following ABAB model. Two participants (6 years and 10 years) were recruited to the study following an inclusion and exclusion criteria. The participants were administered colorful semantic therapy sessions for 12 weeks via zoom. The virtual sessions were 45 to 60 minutes long and were administered two times per week. The pre and post language skills and conversational skills were compared using cottage acquisition scales for language, listening and speech (CASLLS) and systematic analysis of language transcripts (SALT). Results: Both participants showed statistically significant improvements at the end of the intervention period. Drastic improvements were observed in four main sentence structures along with improvements in prepositions and pronouns,tenses and negations, verbs and modals and nouns and noun modifiers. The overall clarity of speech in conversations was identified according to the decline in number of mazes ( participant 1- pre intervention 11 and post intervention 7, Participant 2- pre intervention 4 and post intervention 3), number of maze words ( participant 1- pre intervention 32 and post intervention 7, Participant 2- pre intervention 5 and post intervention 3). Both participants were able to generalize conversational skills such as clarify information by repeating, using descriptions to clarifying information, using long detailed conversations and using primitive narratives in to many different contexts. The improvements in the mentioned language areas imply the effectiveness of the approach even within the virtual mode of delivery. More investigations should be done with a larger participant group to generalize the findings.

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