Date of Award

2018

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Sub-Department

The Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health

First Advisor

Krystal Werfel

Abstract

Progress monitoring is a crucial aspect of speech-language pathology. Without it, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have little way of determining if patients are making progress with the implemented therapy. Currently, most SLPs perform progress monitoring during therapy. This study compared the traditional, status-quo, method of progress monitoring to that of progress monitoring performed before therapy begins in an effort to determine if a timing change would affect therapy outcomes. 2 boys, receiving articulation therapy, and 1 girl, receiving spelling therapy, each had 1 treatment goal for the during condition and 1 treatment goal for the before condition. The children all received their normal therapy, with the only difference being the timing of the progress monitoring. The progress monitoring data were collected and graphed. Comparison of the effectiveness of the during vs before as well as treatments vs baseline were measured by utilizing Cohen’s d. The first boy showed a small effect in favor of the before condition. The other boy and girl bowed showed large effect sizes in favor of the before condition. It was determined that the results of the timing change can be effective in causing a more rapid improvement in skills being taught. While the results are promising, they should be taken with caution, as the sample size of the study was small and confined to a small portion of treatments that encompass speech-language pathology.

Rights

© 2018, James P. Blaida

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