Which of the following is the major physical or organic factor underlying impairment in the speech of persons with cleft palate? (A) Congenital hearing loss from otitis media (B) Broad irregular maxillary arch (C) Palatopharyngeal insufficiency (D) Irregular vocal fold abduction - ✔✔(C) is correct. Palatopharyngeal insufficiency or, more specifically, velopharyngeal insufficiency is the major cause of the hypernasal speech associated with cleft palate. (A), (B), and (C) are incorrect because otitis media is not congenital; in cleft palate, the maxillary arch is often collapsed and thus is narrow; and irregular vocal fold abduction is not associated with cleft palate. An SLP determines the mean length of utterance (MLU) of a language sample from a three-year-old child. Two weeks later, the SLP reevaluates the same sample and again determines the MLU. The extent to which the two scores are similar is most directly a function of the (A) validity of the scores (B) reliability of the scores (C) skewness of the score distribution (D) speededness of the measure - ✔✔(B) is correct. Reliability is the consistency with which a test measures or the degree to which repeated measurement with the same instrument of the same individual would tend to produce the same result. Larger values indicate greater reliability; a reliability of 0.90 or greater is desirable for a test to be used in making decisions about individuals. An SLP is providing services to adults with neurogenic disorders of communication. Of the following clients, which will likely have the most favorable management prognosis? (A) John, who has a brain injury resulting in a slight concussion (B) Jim, who has a traumatic brain injury resulting in paralysis (C) Juan, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (D) Helen, who has Huntington's chorea - ✔✔(A) is correct. The disorder is most limited in scope among those mentioned and, therefore, most likely to be amenable to therapy or treatment. (B) is incorrect because the problem described is diffused or dispersed throughout the head with major impairments to the nerves. (C) and (D) are incorrect because the disorders mentioned are progressive in nature. An SLP has targeted the phonological process of "stopping on initial fricatives" for remediation and is using the word "shoes" to establish the new behavior. The SLP now wishes to investigate whether the speaker can generalize the newly learned pattern to untrained words. If it is assumed that generalization will occur on words whose phonetic characteristics are most like the trained word "shoes," which of the following words should be selected? (A) Shouting (B) Fished (C) Ocean (D) Shook - ✔✔(D) is correct. Generalization probes are a principle feature of phonological therapy. The answer choices require the clinician to pay attention to the position of the fricative sound in a word and also the word's syllable structure. The Spanish-speaking parents of a nine-year- old bilingual child report that their child communicates in Spanish with complete utterances and has a good vocabulary in comparison to other children in the neighborhood. Their concern is that the child interrupts their conversations and has not learned social rules that are important within the family and community. Testing confirms similar problems in Englishspeaking settings. The SLP would most likely recommend that therapy focus on which of the following language areas? (A) Syntax (B) Morphology (C) Semantics (D) Pragmatics - ✔✔(D) is correct. The parents have described adequate syntactic and semantic knowledge by the child. Testing in English confirms similar strengths. The area that has been identified as a weakness is pragmatics and social rules for interaction. A 60-year-old man has Parkinson's disease and is in the early stage of dementia. It would be appropriate to address which of the following goals first in therapy? (A) To educate the family or caregivers (B) To decrease jargon (C) To decrease circumlocution (D) To improve motor skills - ✔✔(A) is correct. When dementia is associated with Parkinson's disease, it is usually irreversible. Therefore, the family or caregivers must understand the nature of the linguistic and intellectual problems, and learn how to maximize the abilities of the client. The sooner the family or caregivers are made aware of the condition of the client, the better the intervention is likely to be.