Praxis Speech Communication flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

ASHA Clinical Fellowship

A 36-week full-time equivalent supervised experience following graduate training, requiring at least 30% direct supervision and 6 hours of on-site observation before certification.

Informed consent elements

Disclosure of the nature of services, risks, benefits, alternatives, and the right to refuse, documented before treatment begins in clinical or educational settings.

Evidence-based practice triad

Integration of best available research evidence, clinician expertise, and client values and preferences; all three components are required for defensible clinical decisions.

Scope of practice

The range of professional activities an SLP or audiologist is trained and authorized to perform, including screening, assessment, treatment, counseling, and collaboration.

HIPAA versus FERPA

HIPAA governs protected health information in health care settings; FERPA governs education records in schools. Both restrict disclosure without consent except for specified exceptions.

Degree of hearing loss

Classification by pure-tone thresholds: normal 0-25 dB HL, mild 26-40, moderate 41-55, moderately severe 56-70, severe 71-90, profound greater than 90 dB HL.

Air-bone gap

The difference between air-conduction and bone-conduction thresholds; a gap indicates a conductive component, while no gap with elevated thresholds indicates sensorineural loss.

Pure-tone average

The average of air-conduction thresholds at 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz, used to classify degree of hearing loss and predict speech recognition ability.

Tympanometry Type B

A flat tympanogram with no identifiable peak, suggesting middle ear effusion, perforation, or occlusion of the ear canal by cerumen or probe placement error.

Otoacoustic emissions

Sounds generated by outer hair cell motility, measurable in a sealed ear canal; absent when hearing loss exceeds about 25-30 dB HL, useful for infant screening.

Real-ear measurement

Verification of hearing aid output in the individual ear canal against prescriptive targets, accounting for ear canal acoustics and coupling effects.

Speech recognition rollover

A decline in speech recognition scores at high presentation levels relative to the maximum, suggesting retrocochlear pathology such as acoustic neuroma.

First word milestone

Emergence of the first meaningful word around 12 months of age; absence by 16 months warrants further developmental and hearing evaluation.

Brown's morpheme order

A predictable sequence of grammatical morpheme acquisition: -ing, plural -s, irregular past, possessive -s, articles, regular past -ed, third-person -s, auxiliary verbs.

Language difference

Variation in language use due to dialect or bilingualism that is not a disorder; assessment must distinguish difference from impairment, ideally in both languages.

Childhood apraxia of speech

A motor speech disorder with inconsistent errors, disrupted coarticulatory transitions, and prosodic impairment; treatment targets motor planning with intensive, repetitive practice.

Developmental language disorder

Persistent language impairment not explained by hearing loss, intellectual disability, or other conditions; may affect receptive, expressive, or both language domains.

Phonological process persistence

Processes such as final consonant deletion, cluster reduction, and fronting that remain past ages 3-4 are candidates for intervention because they exceed expected suppression ages.

Autism spectrum screening

Use of tools such as the M-CHAT to identify social communication and restricted/repetitive behavior concerns, with SLPs addressing pragmatic language and social skills.

Maximum phonation time

The longest sustained phonation on a single breath; normal is about 15-25 seconds in adults, with reduced values suggesting glottal incompetence or respiratory weakness.

s/z ratio

The ratio of maximum phonation time for /s/ to that for /z/; a value greater than 1.4 suggests glottal incompetence or vocal fold pathology.

Vocal fold nodules

Bilateral benign lesions at the anterior-middle third junction from phonotrauma; behavioral voice therapy is first-line treatment, with surgery reserved for therapy failure.

Adductor spasmodic dysphonia

A focal dystonia causing strained-strangled voice breaks on voiced sounds; treated with botulinum toxin injections into the thyroarytenoid muscles.

Stuttering secondary behaviors

Learned escape and avoidance behaviors such as eye blinks, head movements, and word substitutions that develop in response to core stuttering moments.

Lidcombe Program

A behavioral stuttering treatment for young children using parent-delivered operant feedback, with verbal contingencies for fluent and stuttered speech in daily conversations.

Penetration versus aspiration

Penetration is material entering the laryngeal vestibule without passing the vocal folds; aspiration is material passing below the vocal folds into the airway.

VFSS versus FEES

VFSS uses barium and fluoroscopy to visualize all swallow phases; FEES uses endoscopy to directly view the pharynx and larynx without radiation.

GRBAS scale

A perceptual voice rating tool scoring Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, and Strain, each on a 0-3 severity scale.

IDDSI framework

An international standardized system classifying foods and liquids by texture and thickness levels to guide safe dysphagia diets across settings.

Clinical fellowship supervision

Required mentoring during the CF: at least 30% direct supervision and 6 hours of on-site observation across the 36-week full-time equivalent period.

Speech reception threshold

The lowest presentation level at which a listener correctly identifies 50% of spondee words; used to cross-check pure-tone thresholds and set speech testing levels.

Two-word combinations

Emergence of two-word utterances typically between 18 and 24 months; absence by 24 months is a red flag for language delay requiring evaluation.