Award Date

2009

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Psychology

Department

Educational Psychology

Advisor 1

Paul Jones, Committee Chair

Advisor 2

Scott A. Loe, Committee Co-Chair

First Committee Member

Joe N. Crank

Second Committee Member

Kathleen Krach

Graduate Faculty Representative

John W. Filler

Number of Pages

132

Abstract

Psychological assessments are a way of gaining some understanding of an individual in order to help make informed decisions (Sattler, 2001). These assessments offer potentially important and valuable information that can assist individuals with impaired vision in learning additional skills, improving deficient abilities, and in providing diagnostic information for future research. In addition, psychological assessments are frequently used to diagnosis a variety of psychological and learning disorders. Assessing individuals with impaired vision presents a variety of challenges from those encountered with the general population.

The current study provided an investigation into the relationship of the results of the compressed speech listening test (CSLT). The CSLT suggests that "making sense" from a compressed speech sound may access a function comparable to that used in traditional vision-based tests of simultaneous processing. The CSLT is utilized for those who are visually impaired or blind (VI/B) and those who are sighted with an eventual goal to determine whether one possible use for the CSLT could be for assessing simultaneous processing in the sighted and VI/B.

The purpose of this study was to see if there was (1) a relationship between CSLT and Gestalt closure, (2) a difference in performance between sighted and VI/ participants on CSLT, and, (3) within the VI/B participants was there a difference in performance between those who require the use of a screen reader and those whose visual limitation were accommodated with large print?

The results showed a statistically significant positive correlation between CSLT raw score correct and Gestalt Closure test in the sighted participants. There was a statistically significant difference in the CSLT test scores for the sighted participants and the VI/B participants. There was not a statistically significant difference in CSLT of the VI/B participants between those who require JAWS and those who were helped with large print.

Additional analysis' with the CSLT included efficiency (ratio of accuracy and response time) scores and mean response time scores. In regard to CSLT efficiency scores, it was evident that there was a statistically significant difference between VI/B participants who utilized JAWS screen reader and those who utilized large print.

Keywords

Blind; College students; Compressed speech; Neuropsychological testing; Psychological assessment; Simultaneous processing; Visually impaired; Visually impaired and blind

Disciplines

Cognitive Psychology | Quantitative Psychology

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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