My Thesis Defense In Seattle
Author: Addilin Brown | Major: Communication Sciences and Disorders | Semester: Spring 2025
My name is Addilin Brown, and I am a member of the Honor’s College majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders with minors in Psychology and Human Development and Family Sciences. Beginning in the Spring of 2023, I began researching in the Communication Disorder and Occupational Therapy Department under my faculty mentor, Dr. Andrew Bowers, and my committee member, Dr. Lisa Bowers. The purpose of this study was to compare two commonly used Language Sample Analysis (LSA) software, SALT and CLAN, using a language sample elicited from a child in a local Head Start program. This study addressed the following research questions: In what ways do SALT and CLAN differ in their analysis of disfluencies? How user-friendly is each software for clinicians? What are the strengths and limitations of these tools? This was significant in the field of Speech Pathology as standardized assessments may not capture the full range of disfluencies and often involve unfamiliar tasks that do not reflect everyday experiences (Pavelko et al., 2016). This study aims to examine the strengths and limitations of both software and their practicality for clinicians using LSA in assessing clients with potential fluency disorders.
Before beginning my research, I was unsure about my specific interests or who I wanted as a potential mentor. The CSDI Honors Introduction to Research helped me to narrow down my topic. Dr. Rachel Glade encouraged me to explore the University of Arkansas Honor’s website to learn about the Communication Sciences and Disorders faculty’s research interests. After learning more about this, I found that my interests aligned with those of Dr. Lisa Bowers. I met with Dr. Lisa Bowers, who shared her interest in researching Language Sample Analysis software tools. After expressing my interest in focusing on stuttering, Dr. Lisa Bowers recommended meeting Dr. Andrew Bowers, who later became my mentor due to his expertise in researching stuttering.
Through this research, I learned about the benefits of Language Sample Analysis and how it can be used in clinical practice. Despite its advantages, I learned that only about 60% of SLPs reported using LSA (2023) with the largest barrier including time constraints (74% of non-users) (Wilder & Redmond, 2024). Even software designed to simplify the process appeared to be time-consuming and challenging to learn. One of the most significant challenges was running the code in the CLAN software, which often resulted in errors. Overcoming this challenge required persistence and a lot of time reading software manuals. Additionally, this experience gave me insight into potential use of AI in LSA, as AI continues to advance.
Dr. Andrew Bowers and Dr. Lisa Bowers have been very supportive throughout this research project. Throughout the project, I met weekly with my mentors for about an hour each time. During those meetings, they would help me troubleshoot any problems that I was having with the software, answer any questions I had, and help me schedule time to collect language samples at local head start programs. In addition to my mentors, I worked with three other Honor’s students: Lynley Bowen, Hannah Spear, and Caroline Stewart. Each of us worked on analyzing different markers within Language Sample Analysis, but we all had similar goals, which allowed for collaboration. This peer collaboration made the learning process more manageable.
During the spring of 2024, my research group applied to present a poster at the national American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) conference in Seattle, and we were accepted. My research group traveled to the conference on December 5th and presented our research on December 6th. The opportunity to present and receive feedback on our research from professionals in the field was an awesome experience. While in Seattle, I also attended other presentations and learned about the latest advancements in the field of speech-language pathology. One of the presentations that I heard about even discussed the potential of using A.I. to transcribe language samples.
Having completed my project and defended my thesis at the ASHA conference, I finalized and uploaded my thesis. Moving forward, I plan to continue exploring research opportunities in graduate school, where I may participate in further research and potentially complete another thesis.