Väitös (logopedia): MRes Selma Saad Merouwe
Aika
30.11.2024 klo 12.15 - 16.15
MRes Selma Saad Merouwe esittää väitöskirjansa ”Speech disfluencies in bilingual children - An inquiry into the differential diagnosis of stuttering” julkisesti tarkastettavaksi Turun yliopistossa lauantaina 30.11.2024 klo 12.15 (Turun yliopisto, Publicum, Pub2, Assistentinkatu 7, Turku).
Yleisön on mahdollista osallistua väitökseen myös etäyhteyden kautta: https://utu.zoom.us/j/64240252101 (kopioi linkki selaimeen).
Vastaväittäjänä toimii professori Courtney Byrd (Texasin yliopisto, Austin, Yhdysvallat) ja kustoksena professori Kurt Eggers (Turun yliopisto). Tilaisuus on englanninkielinen. Väitöksen alana on logopedia.
Väitöskirja yliopiston julkaisuarkistossa: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9924-8 (kopioi linkki selaimeen).
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Tiivistelmä väitöstutkimuksesta:
What are typical disfluency patterns of bilingual children, and what patterns might indicate stuttering? How accurately can speech-language pathologists (SLPs) distinguish between bilingual children who stutter and those who do not? Which disfluencies are the most reliable for diagnosing stuttering in bilingual children, and does assessing both languages lead to more accurate evaluations? This dissertation seeks to answer these key questions.
Given the growing number of bilingual children worldwide, understanding their disfluency patterns becomes increasingly important. The primary goal of the current research project is to reduce the occurrence of false stuttering diagnoses in bilingual children.
The research involved 92 bilingual Lebanese children (Lebanese-French; Lebanese-English), aged 4 to 7, including 22 children who stutter (CWS) and 70 children who do not stutter (CWNS). Speech samples were collected from each childs dominant and non-dominant languages through conversation and storytelling tasks. Additionally, 32 SLPs evaluated the speech samples to assess whether they could accurately identify stuttering.
Key findings include:
• Disfluency patterns: Many bilingual children who do not stutter show more stuttering-like disfluencies than typical monolingual standards of stuttering, which complicates diagnosis. Language dominance did not significantly affect the overall number of disfluencies, likely because bilingual Lebanese children are typically quite fluent in both languages.
• Identification challenges: SLPs face difficulties accurately identifying stuttering in bilingual children, especially with CWNS who were frequently misidentified as CWS.
• Reliable indicators: Prolongations, blocks, and the frequency of sound or word repetitions emerged as the most reliable indicators of stuttering. Assessing prolongations and blocks in both of a child’s languages provided a more accurate diagnosis than assessing them in just one language.
This research has significant implications for the assessment and diagnosis of stuttering in bilingual children. The results highlight the need for SLPs to adjust traditional diagnostic methods, which are often based on monolingual data, to accommodate bilingual disfluency patterns. The study also emphasizes the importance of evaluating both languages in bilingual children to ensure more accurate diagnoses.
Yleisön on mahdollista osallistua väitökseen myös etäyhteyden kautta: https://utu.zoom.us/j/64240252101 (kopioi linkki selaimeen).
Vastaväittäjänä toimii professori Courtney Byrd (Texasin yliopisto, Austin, Yhdysvallat) ja kustoksena professori Kurt Eggers (Turun yliopisto). Tilaisuus on englanninkielinen. Väitöksen alana on logopedia.
Väitöskirja yliopiston julkaisuarkistossa: https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-29-9924-8 (kopioi linkki selaimeen).
***
Tiivistelmä väitöstutkimuksesta:
What are typical disfluency patterns of bilingual children, and what patterns might indicate stuttering? How accurately can speech-language pathologists (SLPs) distinguish between bilingual children who stutter and those who do not? Which disfluencies are the most reliable for diagnosing stuttering in bilingual children, and does assessing both languages lead to more accurate evaluations? This dissertation seeks to answer these key questions.
Given the growing number of bilingual children worldwide, understanding their disfluency patterns becomes increasingly important. The primary goal of the current research project is to reduce the occurrence of false stuttering diagnoses in bilingual children.
The research involved 92 bilingual Lebanese children (Lebanese-French; Lebanese-English), aged 4 to 7, including 22 children who stutter (CWS) and 70 children who do not stutter (CWNS). Speech samples were collected from each childs dominant and non-dominant languages through conversation and storytelling tasks. Additionally, 32 SLPs evaluated the speech samples to assess whether they could accurately identify stuttering.
Key findings include:
• Disfluency patterns: Many bilingual children who do not stutter show more stuttering-like disfluencies than typical monolingual standards of stuttering, which complicates diagnosis. Language dominance did not significantly affect the overall number of disfluencies, likely because bilingual Lebanese children are typically quite fluent in both languages.
• Identification challenges: SLPs face difficulties accurately identifying stuttering in bilingual children, especially with CWNS who were frequently misidentified as CWS.
• Reliable indicators: Prolongations, blocks, and the frequency of sound or word repetitions emerged as the most reliable indicators of stuttering. Assessing prolongations and blocks in both of a child’s languages provided a more accurate diagnosis than assessing them in just one language.
This research has significant implications for the assessment and diagnosis of stuttering in bilingual children. The results highlight the need for SLPs to adjust traditional diagnostic methods, which are often based on monolingual data, to accommodate bilingual disfluency patterns. The study also emphasizes the importance of evaluating both languages in bilingual children to ensure more accurate diagnoses.
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