Praxis ETS SLP questions and answers| Graded A

Praxis ETS SLP 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 Correct Answer: (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 Correct Answer: (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 Correct Answer: (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 Correct Answer: (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 English-speaking 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 Correct Answer: (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 Correct Answer: (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. An adult female has received 20 sessions of voice therapy for hoarseness related to vocal nodules. Data for pre- and post-evaluation measures for this individual are: Fundamental 175 200 frequency (Hz) Phonation duration 10 15 (sec.) Jitter (percent) 1.2 .68 Mean phonatory 100 150 airflow (ml/sec.) Which of the following is most strongly indicated by the data? (A) The patient's voice is improving. (B) The patient's voice is deteriorating. (C) Perturbation is worse, but the other measures are better. (D) The patient's voice is still abnormal. Correct Answer: A) is correct. All measures discussed demonstrate improvement. There is no certainty that the voice is still abnormal. Perturbation, having gone down, shows some improvement. Based only on the data shown, one could say that there is some improvement. An SLP is behaving ethically if he or she does which of the following? (A) Offers to provide speech or language services solely by correspondence for an individual whose disability prevents easy access to the professional's office (B) Diagnoses a speech disorder solely through correspondence as long as the correspondence is thorough and careful (C) Offers general information of an educational nature by correspondence (D) Indicates the specific duration of the therapeutic program Correct Answer: (C) is correct. According to the 2010 Code of Ethics of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), general information of an educational nature by correspondence is allowed. (A), (B), and (D) are incorrect. These choices are not approved and are discussed in Principle of Ethics I, Rule K. Which of the following statements best characterizes the ethics of formulating prognoses for clients with speech and language disorders? (A) No assessment is complete until a precise statement can be formulated regarding the prognosis. (B) The extreme complexity of speech and language processes and behaviors makes it impossible to formulate prognoses. (C) After an assessment has been completed, it is usually appropriate to make some general statements about prognosis. (D) A clinician's ability to make prognostic statements depends on the availability of standardized tests to quantify the severity of a speech and language disorder. Correct Answer: (C) is correct. According to the 2010 ASHA Code of Ethics, Principle of Ethics I, Rule J, a speech- language pathologist can make general statements about a client's prognosis. (A), (B), and (D) are contrary to the spirit of this ethical position. The above audiogram for an adult represents (A) normal hearing bilaterally (B) a bilateral moderate conductive hearing loss (C) right-ear low-frequency hearing loss (D) a bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss Correct Answer: (A) is correct. Thresholds at or below 20 dB represent normal hearing in an adult. In the audiogram, air conduction thresholds for both the left and right ears are at or below 20 dB, indicating no hearing loss of any type. Which of the following is the most accurate statement regarding the word-initial consonant? (A) The high-amplitude concentration of aperiodic energy at 4 kHz suggests that the initial consonant is a voiceless sibilant fricative. (B) The low-amplitude concentration of periodic energy suggests that the initial consonant is a voiced sibilant fricative. (C) The presence of prevoicing before the release burst suggests that the initial consonant is a voiced affricate. (D) The low-amplitude, diffuse distribution of aperiodic energy suggests that the initial consonant is a voiceless nonsibilant fricative. Correct Answer: (A) is correct. Voiceless sibilant fricatives such as /s/ would be recorded on a spectrogram as having high-amplitude aperiodic energy in the range of 4K Hz. The "incidence" of a disorder is defined as the (A) prevalence of the disorder (B) number of new cases of the disorder reported within a specified period of time (C) most common etiology of the disorder (D) number of cases of the disorder that were successfully treated Correct Answer: (B) is correct. The term "incidence" pertains to the number of new cases of a disease or disorder arising in a population during a given time period (e.g., over one year or over the life span). Which of the following types of fibers facilitates communication between the right and left hemispheres by connecting cortical areas in the two hemispheres? (A) Association (B) Commissural (C) Efferent (D) Afferent Correct Answer: (B) is correct. Commissural fibers are the only ones that bridge between the two cortical hemispheres. A 68-year-old man sustained a CVA and received a course of speech-language treatment for anomic aphasia. He was discharged after making rapid improvement early in therapy. Three years later his wife reports that he is having more difficulty speaking and understanding, but that his memory skills and orientation abilities remain intact. She has also noticed that his conversation skills are slowly deteriorating. Of the following, which is the most likely explanation for the client's communicative decline? (A) A transient ischemic attack (B) An astrocytoma, probably in the vicinity of the supramarginal gyrus (C) Primary progressive aphasia (D) Lewy body dementia Correct Answer: (C) is correct. Primary progressive aphasia is isolated language deterioration with relative preservation of other cognitive abilities and symptoms that vary, depending upon the site of lesion. Signs and symptoms may include word- finding problems characterized by pauses during speech, difficulty naming objects, difficulty with comprehension of spoken and written language, and inability to comprehend word meanings. 15. According to ASHA recommendations, a child who is admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit should receive a hearing screening (A) at 3 months of age (B) at 1 year of age (C) at 2 years of age (D) before discharge from the hospital Correct Answer: (D) is correct. According to the Joint Committee on Infant Screening Year 2000 Position Statement: Principles and Guidelines for Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Programs, II-28, infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit should be screened for hearing deficits before discharge from the hospital. The intent behind this recommendation is to evaluate a child's hearing at as early an age as possible. 16. Under the requirement for a child to receive a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, a public school must provide sign language interpreter services to a child under which of the following conditions? (A) The school district can recover the cost of interpreter services from a third-party payer. (B) The child's physician indicates that the services of an interpreter are medically necessary. (C) The interpreter has been requested by the parent in the IEP meeting. (D) The IEP team determines that interpreter services are necessary for the child. Correct Answer: (D) is correct. Free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment is a central tenet of IDEA, which governs special education services in the public schools. IDEA makes clear that the services to be provided to a student must be endorsed as educationally necessary by the entire IEP team, which includes the student's parents, a regular education teacher, a special education teacher, a representative of the local education agency, and others as appropriate. Which of the following is closest to the correct phonemic transcription of the word displayed in the spectogram? (A) /fil/ (B) /naƱ/ (C) /stɔr/ (D) /dʒɛt/ Correct Answer: (C) is correct. The spectrogram illustrates the production of the word "star," which has an initial high-amplitude sibilant followed by a plosive, thus the short absence of sound after release of /t/ before production of the vowel. 18. The spacing of the glottal pulses during the vocalic portions indicates that the speaker (A) was whispering (B) used a falling intonation contour (C) used a flat intonation contour (D) had poor vocal-tract control Correct Answer: (B) is correct. The spectrographic recording illustrates a falling intonation contour as the glottal pulses gradually shift downward. Which of the following is the primary reason for using standardized norm-referenced instruments to assess communication function? (A) To track progress on a session-by- session basis (B) To provide a comparison against a representative population (C) To develop a database for diagnostic purposes (D) To provide qualitative data for the assessment report Correct Answer: (B) is correct. The primary reason for using a standardized norm-referenced assessment is to compare an individual's performance to norms generated from a much larger representative sample. Use of a norm-referenced assessment enables the client's behavior to be compared to typical function for individuals in the same age range. (A) is incorrect because standardized assessments are not administered as frequently as every session. (C) is incorrect because inclusion of client information in a diagnostic database is not the primary reason to use a norm-referenced instrument. (D) is incorrect because performance on standardized tests is expressed numerically, which makes it quantitative data. Which of the following types of cerebral palsy is characterized by low muscle tone, impaired balance, and tremor?