George W. Larson

Voice therapy practices and techniques: A survey of voice clinicians

Members of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Special Interest Division on Voice were asked to rate statements which emanated from a previously conducted national survey regarding the practice of voice therapy (Larson and Mueller, 1991). Respondents rated eight data-based statements on a five-point scale as to agreement/disagreement. Results indicated strong agreement with previous findings with the exception of the item addressing treatment time. Implications of these results are discussed.

The effect of procedural variations on the s/z ratio of adults

The effect of elicitation order, number of required trials, and selection of /s/ and /z/ values utilized to calculate the s/z ratio in adult subjects was examined. Results support the conclusion that a single phoneme production trial is a valid and efficient method for obtaining the s/z ratio. Procedural and clinical implications are discussed.

Response Patterns of Pre-School-Age Children to the Northwestern Syntax Screening Test

This study was undertaken to describe the response patterns of 216 boys and girls between the ages of five-and-one-half and six-and-one-half years of age on grammatically matched receptive and expressive items of the NSST. The results showed no significant differences among the mean scores for three age levels or between the two sexes. However, the obtained means were substantially below those obtained on the NSST standardization sample. Item analysis suggested several inconsistencies between the ages of five-and-one-half and six-and-one-half years of age on gram-correct expressively but incorrect receptively.

Test-Retest Comparisons Using the CELF-RST and BLT-2S With Kindergartners

The purpose of this study was to explore the performance stability of 101 kindergarten children on two commonly used screening tests: the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised Screen...

CHANGES IN VOICE ONSET TIME IN YOUNG AND OLDER MEN

This investigation studied the effect of aging on the articulatory‐laryngeal adjustments required for speech. Specifically, measurements of vocal onset time (VOT) were obtained from 45 healthy male speakers. The speakers were divided into three groups of 15 subjects. The young control group contained healthy male speakers aged 25‐39 years. Groups 1 and 2 included healthy older speakers aged 60‐69 years and 70‐79 years respectively. Each speaker produced ten tokens of six different CVC words embedded in a carrier phrase for spectro‐graphic analysis. Measures of VOT were then obtained for bilabial, alveolar, and velar English prevocalic stop consonants. Findings revealed a clear and significant reduction of VOT for the phonemes /p/ and /t/ in the speech of older subjects. The results demonstrated that this acoustic measure can distinguish between groups of young and older male speakers. This voice characteristic may prove to be a major factor influencing listener perception.

The experiential effect of kindergarten on Bankson language screening test performance

This investigation examined the effect of kindergarten experience on the performance of two groups of children on the Bankson Language Screening Test. One group of children was tested at the beginning of their kindergarten experience and a second group was tested five months later. Performance of the two groups on the Bankson was determined to be significantly different, independent of age. The different performance pattern for each group is described as well as the possible implications. There may be a need for different sets of language test norms for children with kindergarten experience and for children without this experience.

Comparison of sampling techniques in the measurement of children's morphological development.

Sixty children ranging in age from 66 to 78 months were administered the Berry-Talbott Exploratory Test of Grammar and the Grammatic Closure subtest of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Development. The verbal responses obtained of each child from each sampling technique were compared on matched grammatical items. A correlation coefficient between the two test group means indicated only moderate correlation. An analysis of the matched grammatical items (40 comparisons) showed a higher correct response frequency for the Grammatic Closure items than for the Berry-Talbott items. However, children who did achieve correct responses to the Berry-Talbott items almost always achieved success with the Grammatic Closure test items. Success on the Grammatic Closure items did not assume success with the Berry-Talbott items. Various hypotheses are offered to explain differences in response patterns.

Analysis of response to the Berry-Talbott

Abstract Sixty 5 1 2 -, 6-, and 6 1 2 - year-old boys and girls were administered the Berry- Talbott test of language. Twenty adults received the same test. Analyses of variances of childrens total scores revealed no differences between sexes and age levels. However, the differences in responses between children and adults, as shown by an item analysis, suggest the presence of a maturational effect but not with the age group investigated. The results indicate that the expected performance levels predicted by Berry and Talbott for this age child as well as some items should be revised. Various hypotheses are offered to explain differences in the response patterns.