hofstra horizons - spring 2013

RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP PROMOTING EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AT HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY

HORIZONSH O F S T R A

TOPS: A Street Game App for Learning First to Third Grade Mathematics

SPRING 2013

The fall 2012 semester was one of great highs and difficult lows. We began the semester by getting ready for the hosting of the second presidential debate on October 16, 2012, an extraordinary opportunity for our students and community to participate in the national dialogue about the issues of the presidential election. Just two weeks after the debate, however, we were faced with the trauma and displacement caused by Superstorm

Sandy, which affected our students and faculty to a degree that we’ve not seen before.

Our community, as it always does, rallied around each other and our neighbors. Students volunteered, in groups and as individuals, in the towns and villages along our coastline, by running supply, blood and food drives. Our faculty also responded by donating to our relief fund and is, through the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, creating a research consortium to examine issues related to Superstorm Sandy.

As we are at the midpoint of a new semester, it is appropriate to stop and look at a few examples of the excellent scholarly work of our colleagues.

I encourage you to read about the developments and problems on the edge of digital “cloud” technology that Professor Hak Kim examines and explains in his article. Read about the work that Professor Russell Burke is developing with Hofstra graduate student Kaetlyn Kerr, through a generous award from the National Science Foundation, which will increase our understanding of the effects of Lyme disease. Professor Jason Davidow’s article discusses a highly replicable procedure to eliminate stuttering, and his research investigates promising connections between that procedure and others to help us learn how and why successful speech treatments work.

The importance of hope theory in student academic and life achievement is emphasized by Professors Holly Seirup and Sage Rose, who looked at the strategies of a new Hofstra course that assists students to transition successfully out of academic probation. Finally, through the work of Hofstra’s educational app development team, find out how Professor Roberto Joseph, students, and colleagues from various disciplines came together to heighten the fluency and confidence of urban minority youths through the use of a mobile device app that incorporates students’ local interests into learning mathematics.

With all of these articles, I hope that you feel the same pride in the impressive work of your colleagues and in your own work that I feel. Congratulations on another year of scholarly excellence.

Sincerely,

Stuart RabinowitzPresident

4 Challenging the Big Data Tidal Wave in the Cloud and Social Media

8 The Hopeful Student: Facilitating Academic Success Through the Will and the Ways

Stuart Rabinowitz, J.D.President

Herman A. Berliner, Ph.D.Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Sofia Kakoulidis, M.B.A. Associate Provost for Research and Sponsored Programs

Alice Diaz-Bonhomme, B.A.Assistant Provost for Research and Sponsored Programs

Research and Scholarship at Hofstra University

HOFSTRAhorizons

table of contents

Cover photo courtesy of Roberto Joseph.

president’s COLUMN

I am pleased to present another exciting issue of Hofstra Horizons, highlighting the research of our faculty.

The article by Professor Hak Kim, “Challenging the Big Data Tidal Wave in the Cloud and Social Media,” traces the development of big data, i.e., large volume, high velocity, varied data that is rapidly growing and is often difficult to analyze. Dr. Kim points to the challenges and potential value of social media-driven big data to business and society as a whole.

“The Hopeful Student: Facilitating Academic Success Through the Will and the Ways,” by Professors Holly Seirup and Sage Rose, highlights an alarming statistic: More than a quarter of the nation’s first-year students will leave their four-year colleges without completing a degree. This leads to a discussion of levels of hope and the impact of hope on a student’s academic success, retention, and graduation, as well as the importance of hope interventions in the overall school environment.

Professor Russell Burke and graduate student Kaetlyn Kerr explore why cases of Lyme disease are much more common in northern parts of the eastern United States than they are in the south. Dr. Burke, whose lab specializes in reptile ecology, and Ms. Kerr, along with a consortium of five other universities, were awarded $2.5 million by the National Science Foundation to investigate this question. The results of their research will help increase our understanding of Lyme disease distribution, and inform the public and public health workers about the potential future risk of the disease in the south.

With “TOPS: A Street Game App for Learning First to Third Grade Math,” Professor Roberto Joseph introduces us to an exciting project by Hofstra’s educational app development team, a group that unites faculty, graduates, and undergraduates with a range of backgrounds from educational technology to business administration to fine arts. In an effort to strengthen students’ abilities in math and science, the team is designing, testing, and marketing a video game app for mobile devices. The app seeks to strengthen a positive “math identity” in students by using culturally relevant learning to form a meaningful connection that is often lacking in arithmetic drills.

“Working to Advance Stuttering Treatment” is both a personal reflection and an informative article by Professor Jason Davidow, who discusses effective treatment techniques to assist children, adolescents and adults who stutter. Specifically, Dr. Davidow details the success of modification of vocal cord vibration intervals in the treatment of stuttering, as well as the connection between rhythm and reductions in stuttering. He also looks forward to greater research into improving treatment techniques that focus on the “naturalness” of speech for persons who stutter.

I hope you enjoy reading about these latest developments in Hofstra faculty research. We look forward to another successful year of exploration and discovery.

Sincerely,

Herman A. Berliner, Ph.D. Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

HOFSTRA HORIZONS is published annually by the Office for Research and Sponsored Programs, 144 Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11549-1440.

Each issue describes in lay language some of the many research and creative activities conducted at Hofstra. The conclusions and opinions expressed by the investigators and writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect University policy.

©2013 by Hofstra University in the United States. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the consent of Hofstra University. Inquiries and requests for permission to reprint material should be addressed to: Editor, HOFSTRA HORIZONS, Office for Research and Sponsored Programs, 144 Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York 11549-1440. Telephone: 516-463-6810.

Research and Scholarship at Hofstra University

HOFSTRAhorizonsprovost’s COLUMN

12\ What Causes the Strange North American Pattern of Lyme Disease?

18 \ TOPS: A Street Game App for Learning First to Third Grade Mathematics

24Working to Advance Stuttering Treatment

4 Hofstra HORIZONS t Spring 2013

Emergence of New Information Technology Ecosystem

For several decades, the Internet has been growing explosively and generating tremendous

benefits for our world. As pointed out by Werbach (1997), the Internet is fundamentally different from other communications technologies (i.e., the traditional telephone network). Since the Internet has an open and flexible architecture, it could provide the endless spiral of connectivity; that is, any form of network could connect to and share data with other networks through the Internet. As a result, the services provided through the Internet

are separated from the underlying infrastructure to a much greater extent than with other media.

Cloud computing (Harmer et al., 2009; Hayes, 2008; Milojicic, 2008; Weiss, 2007) has emerged as a new generation of business infrastructure environment. Different from the traditional wired and client/server-based system architecture, this platform consists of wireless and cloud-based system environments. It supports new business models, such as user-driven purchase and click install on any device. It also creates new service deployment models by enabling lower total cost of ownership (TCO), scalability and short time-to-usage.

People can communicate and interact with anyone, anytime and anywhere, using smartphones. Smartphones (i.e., iPhone and Galaxy), with their rich application support, are one of the fastest growing fields in the mobile communication industry. Unlike traditional cellular phones, today’s smartphones are used for sharing information (i.e., social networking and geographic location services) and enjoying entertainment (i.e., games and sports), which is called infotainment (Moy et al., 2005). The wide adoption of smartphones has opened new opportunities to business organizations, driving innovation in business. As a consequence of these initiatives,

Hak J. Kim, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Information Technology and Quantitative Methods

Challenging the Big Data Tidal Wave in the Cloud and Social Media

Hofstra HORIZONS

Hofstra HORIZONS t Spring 2013 5

businesses will experience increased productivity and efficiency.

Another area of distinctive growth in the IT ecosystem is social media (Cusumano, 2011; Häsel, 2011; Violino, 2011; Foster et al., 2010; Beckman, 2010; Hathi, 2009). With mobile cloud computing and social media tools, the world is changing and becoming more intelligent and interconnected. These phenomena have become a revolutionary driving force for the development of a new digital era, which is called big data. People are coming to enjoy intelligent digital life.

Evolution of Computing Platforms

Modern enterprises (Sturdevant, 2011) are relying heavily on information systems. A mainframe system was introduced in the 1960s/1970s, which is a timesharing system to serve many connected terminals with large and powerful data processing systems. In the 1980s, personal computers (and workstations) were connected to each other, which is called networked PCs, but still they were communicating within the company, using private networking software. In the 1990s, Internet-based enterprise information systems were introduced. The employee could use the enterprise information systems through the Internet regardless of geographical distance. Rather, Web-based standards and protocols were embedded in the enterprise systems.

Recently, we have seen the emergence of a new enterprise information system platform, called the cloud computing platform (Cusumano, 2011). This platform uses the concept of grid (Kurdi et al., 2008; Abramson et al., 2002), which

is to build a virtual supercomputer to connect many networked computers and then to aggregate resources (i.e., CPUs, storage, power supplies, network interfaces, etc.) to utilize them collectively. Cloud computing has been made possible by the shift to Internet technologies that are built on Web-based standards and protocols. Figure 1 shows the comparison of architecture among mainframe, client/server, and cloud computing platforms.

For the last couple of decades, the client/server architecture (Abdul-Fatah, 2002) has been the main architecture of the Internet. This client/server is built on the distributed environment. Technologies are introduced in server systems to create a virtual form of operating systems, storage devices and network resources. There are different levels of virtualization, such as users, applications, processors, storage devices, and networks. Virtualization allows multiple accesses to different devices by users. It is like one computer controlling other machines by consolidating information to improve efficiency.

Cloud computing (Mell and Grance, 2011) is a form of virtualization that involves data outsourcing with no up-front cost and provides just-in-time

services. It is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. It provides resources over the Internet on demand and eliminates the cost for in-house infrastructure. The key drivers for cloud computing are bandwidth increase in networks, cost reduction in storage systems, and advances in database systems.

As shown in Figure 2, cloud computing has three typical types of business models (Sotomayor et al., 2009): Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and

Figure 1: Comparison of Computing Architecture

(a) Mainframe (b) Client/Server (c) Cloud Computing

With mobile cloud

computing and

social media tools, the

world is changing and

becoming more intelligent

and interconnected.

Challenging the Big Data Tidal Wave in the Cloud and Social Media


Hofstra HORIZONS

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In SaaS, customers can use applications, but cannot control the operating system, hardware or network infrastructure. In PaaS, customers can use the hosting environment (i.e., servers) as well as their applications, but still cannot control the operating system, other hardware and network infrastructure. In IaaS, customers can use fundamental computing resources, such as processing power, storage, and network components, and they also can control the operating system, storage, deployed applications and possibly networking. Big Data as a New Tidal Wave

Big data is newly spotlighted with the popular use of social media (Lacho and Marinello, 2010) such as Twitter (Weng et al., 2010; Jansen et al., 2009), Facebook (Chiu et al., 2008), and Flickr (Cha et al., 2009), which are becoming more prevalent and have created a new way of life for people (Hathi, 2009). According to IBM (2011), more than 2 billion Internet users and 4.6 billon mobile phones users are in the world. Facebook (Foster et al., 2010) has more than 500 million users and creates 30 billion pieces of content every month. And, every day, about 340 million data are exchanged on Twitter. As a result, we are living the “Age of Big Data.”

What is big data? There is no single definition of big data, but, broadly speaking, it is the tidal wave of data, not only volume but also velocity and variety, from cloud computing and social media. Narrowly, it can be defined as data sets whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, analyze, and visualize. However, the size of a database that qualifies as big data is changed, so its definition varies by industry sectors. Big data today ranges from a few dozen tera bytes (TB) to multiple peta bytes (PB).

There are two types of data: structured and unstructured. Structured data refers to data with a high degree of organization in a structure so that it is identifiable, such as data in a database. Unstructured data is the opposite. The typical types of unstructured data include video clips, weblogs, social media feeds, etc. For example, email is a type of unstructured data because it does not generally write about precisely one subject and even the format of data. Data in spreadsheets, on the other hand, is an example of structured data because it can be arranged in a database system. In reality, about 80 percent of the world’s data in the business world is unstructured. It may be data we’ve

aggregated before but could not process with current data mining tools.

The characteristics of big data are large volume, high velocity, and wide variety. Data volume is expanding due to the increase of social media, online data collection and location data, to name a few. Volume is also accelerating with additional online activity and usage of sensor-enabled devices. The pace of business activity and competitive pressure increases as companies begin to use data on a more frequent basis, including streaming data.

The Challenge of Big Data to Business Firms

The Internet is the backbone of our society, while mobile cloud computing is a central source of social change. Social media has created big data, which is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, analyze, and visualize. Today, businesses are challenged by big data because it grows so large that it becomes awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. However, big data has big potential in that it can generate significant value across sectors such as health care, retail, manufacturing, and the public sector.

ReferencesAbdul-Fatah, I. (2002). Performance of CORBA-based client-server architectures.

IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 13 (2), pp. 111-127.

Abramson, D., Buyya, R., and Giddy, J. (2002). A computational economy for

grid computing and its implementation in the Nimrod-G resource broker. Future Generation Computer Systems, 18 (8), pp. 1061-1074.

Beckman, M. (2010). Enterprise security vs. social media. System iNEWS,

SystemiNetwork.com, pp. 21-27.

Cha, M., Mislove, A., and Gummadi, K. (2009). A measurement-driven analysis of

information propagation in the Flickr social

Figure 2: Cloud Computing Platform (Source: SAP, 2011)


Hofstra HORIZONS

network. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on World Wide Web.

Chiu, P., Cheung, C., and Lee, M. (2008). Online social networks: Why do we use

Facebook? Communications in Computer and Information Science, 19, pp. 67-74.

Cusumano, M.A. (2011). Technology strategy and management: Platform wars come

to social media. Communications of the ACM, 54 (4), pp. 31-33.

Foster, M. K., Francescucci, A., and West, B.C. (2010). Why users participate in online

social networks. International Journal of e-Business Management, 4 (1), pp. 3-19.

Harmer, T., Wright, P., Cunningham, C., and Perrott, R. (2009). Provider-independent

use of the cloud. In Proceedings of the 15th International European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, p. 465.

Häsel, M. (2011). OpenSocial: An enabler for social applications on the Web.

Communications of the ACM, 54 (1), pp. 139-144.

Hathi, S. (2009). How social networking increases collaboration at IBM. Strategic

Communication Management, 14 (1), pp. 32-35.

Hayes, B. (2008). Cloud computing. Communications of the ACM, Issue 7,

pp. 9-11.

IBM. (2011). Better business outcomes with business analytics. White Paper, IBM

Software Group.

Jansen, B.J., Zhang, M., Sobel, K., and Chowdury, A. (2009). Twitter power-tweets

as electronic word-of-mouth. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 60 (11), pp. 2169-2188.

Kurdi, H., Li, M., and Al-Raweshidy, H. (2008). A classification of emerging and

traditional grid systems. Distributed Systems Online, Issue 3.

Lacho, K. J., and Marinello, C. (2010). How small business owners can use social

networking to promote their business. Entrepreneurial Executive, 15, pp. 127-133.

Mell, P., and Grance, T. (2011). The NIST definition of cloud computing. Special

Publication 800-145. Retrieved from http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-145/SP800-145.pdf.

Milojicic, D. (2008). Cloud computing: Interview with Russ Daniels and Franco

Travostino. IEEE Internet Computing, Issue 5, pp. 7-9.

Moy, P., Xenos, M., and Hess, V. (2005). Communication and citizenship: Mapping

the political effects of infotainment. Mass Communication and Society, 8 (2), pp. 111-131.

SAP. (2011). SaaS, PaaS, cloud computing: The next generation of enterprise software,

Presentation Slides, SAP.

Sotomayor, B., Montero, R., Llorente, I., and Foster, I. (2009). Virtual infrastructure

management in private and hybrid clouds. IEEE Internet Computing, 13, pp. 14-22.

Sturdevant, C. (2011). Socializing the enterprise. eWeek, 28 (1), p. 34.

Violino, B. (2011). Social media trends. Communications of the ACM, 54 (2), p 17.

Weiss, A. (2007). Computing in the clouds. netWorker, 4, pp. 16-25.

Weng, J., Lim, E., Jiang, J., and He, Q. (2010). Twitterrank: Finding topic-sensitive

influential Twitterers. In Proceedings of the Third ACM International Conference on Websearch and Data Mining, ACM.

Werbach, K. (1997). Digital tornado: The Internet and telecommunications policy. Working Paper, FCC Office of Plans and Policy, No. 29.

Hak J. Kim is an associate professor of information technology and quantitative methods and director of the Computer Lab in the Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University. He earned a Ph.D. in information systems from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to beginning his academic career, he worked for six years as a research engineer at SK Telecom, which is a world-class wireless network carrier.

His research interests include mobile location-based services with mobile app, big data analytics in social media, cyber security in cloud computing, and digital forensics. He is currently building a real-time location tracking and positioning system using wireless networking and mobile apps. This system can be integrated into a hospital management system and will provide relevant information across the hospital to support effective decision making for patient care and hospital administration, in a seamless flow.

Another project is to build the big data analytic system as a business intelligent system to support better decision making. He recognizes that more than 80 percent of data in the world is

unstructured data (i.e., social media data). He believes that current data analysis methods and tools will be transformed into business analytics tools for analyzing big data. For empirical testing, he will attempt to analyze big data that is created from social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Dr. Kim has a strong interest in pre-college (K-12) education. In summer 2013 he will conduct a mobile app workshop for students to learn how to program mobile apps and games on their smartphones and tablets. In addition, he teaches in the Cisco Networking Academy Program at Hofstra, which provides students with classroom and laboratory experience in computer networking technology leading to Cisco certification. Dr. Kim enjoys playing baseball, camping, reading books, and watching movies; he also enjoys finding new and interesting places to eat with his family.


Introduction

The National Center for Educational Statistics (2012) reported that 21.6 million

students enrolled in higher education institutions during the fall of 2012. Many of these students began their undergraduate education after completing a long and sometimes arduous search process, to find the college/university they considered to be the right “fit.” Yet according to the American College Testing (ACT) Service (2005), 26 percent of first-year students enrolled at a four-year college or university will leave without completing a degree. Despite this staggering statistic, and given the

amount of time and money spent on the college search process by the student, and the recruitment/admissions procedure on the part of the institution, students and institutions begin each semester with high expectations of academic success.

It is anticipated that students will attend courses, maintain the required academic rigor, and graduate in a timely manner. However, at some point during their college careers, 25 percent of all students will be on academic probation (Cohen & Brawer, 2002). There is compelling evidence that supports an inverse relationship between a student’s first-year GPA and his or her likelihood of dropping out of college (Ishitani &

DesJardins, 2002). Many colleges, concerned about student attrition, have focused academic support initiatives on improving grades, academic performance and probationary status in the hopes of facilitating persistence and retention among college student populations.

Yet recent studies suggest that academic success may be more than just grades and test scores; some suggest that achievement is dependent upon the hope of the student (Gallop, 2009a; Lopez, 2009; Worrell & Hale, 2001). Although colleges and universities prefer entrance criteria such as the SAT and ACT as predictors of college success, research reveals that “hope predicts GPA and

Holly Seirup, Ed.D., Associate Professor of Counseling and Mental Health Professions

Sage Rose, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Counseling and Mental Health Professions

The Hopeful Student:Facilitating Academic Success Through the Will and the Ways


Hofstra HORIZONS

retention in college, and hope scores are more robust predictors of college success than high school GPA, SAT, and ACT scores” (Lopez, 2009, p. 1). Based on this finding, hope level could play a role in college admission as a predictor of future success in college.

What is hope?

Hope is defined as a motivational belief system that affects goal-setting behaviors and perceptions about future success (Snyder et al., 1991). Individuals with high hope can clearly define goals, produce strategies to obtain those goals (pathways), and sustain the volitional thought needed to use multiple strategies (agency) when motivation toward goals subsides. Hope is an individual’s ability to set goals, energize him or herself to work on goals, and envision multiple paths (or strategies) to reach those goals. Research has shown that college students with high hope levels have higher GPAs and are more likely to graduate than those with low hope (Grasgreen, 2012). When faced with challenges or obstacles in reaching their goals, those with higher hope levels have contingency plans and are willing to reach out for support to implement an alternative path toward their goal.

Why should colleges and universities be interested in hope?

Higher education needs to take notice of the impact and importance of hope as it relates to a student’s academic success, retention and, ultimately, graduation. Individuals with high hope have been shown to perform well in educational contexts. Scores on hope measurement have been found to be predictive of academic achievement across all grade levels (Snyder, Shorey et al., 2002). Recent results based on the Gallup Student Poll (2009) found that of the American students polled, half would be considered hopeful. The other half of the students would be considered stuck

(33 percent) or discouraged (17 percent). The hopeful students “possess numerous ideas and abundant energy for the future” while the stuck and discouraged students lack “the ideas and energy they need to navigate problems and reach goals” (Lopez, 2009, p.2). Those with lower hope may not be able to “see” alternative pathways and therefore become discouraged or stuck, unable to move toward their goal. This may be the situation with college students who find themselves on academic probation. Many students believe they possess acceptable academic support skills that they have used since high school. Unfortunately, they may find that those same skills that “worked” in high school are no longer relevant on the college campus, and yet they see no viable alternative. For example, Kuh (2007) found that 47 percent of students in high school report studying three hours or less per week, yet predominantly earn grades of A and B. Those students may believe that three hours of studying a week will produce the same results in college. Many find, by their first semester, that their past study strategies are no longer effective for them to reach their goals of academic success. A high hope student would make adjustments and alternative pathways to keep up with the load, while low hope students may miss this opportunity to alter their study pathways. Important to note, however, that one is not doomed to a life of low hope. According to hope theory, “hope is malleable” (Gallup, 2009), and a student’s hope level can be enhanced (Grasgreen, 2012).

Hope interventions

Although a relatively new concept, there have been some developments of hope interventions in educational settings. Lopez, Bouwkamp, Edwards, and Pedrotti (2000) noted that educators can enhance hope levels by focusing on the personal statements students use to

describe themselves. This may be as simple as reducing negative self-talk and reframing the conversation from “I knew I wouldn’t do well on this assignment” to “can we talk about what I need to do to do differently on the next one?”

Grasgreen (2012) noted that there have been some positive outcomes in a study of students who participated in a workshop intended to enhance hope levels. In the 90-minute seminar, students are asked to identify steps necessary to reach their goal, along with one potential obstacle and a potential alternative. Results of the study revealed that participants who attended the hope intervention workshop had higher levels of hope after attending than students who did not attend the program. Unfortunately, data were not available to identify the lasting impact of the intervention.

While hope interventions can encourage hopeful thinking in students, they also have a place in the overall school environment. Hope-based interventions are also considered cost-efficient and easy to use in educational institutions. Hope interventions are not limited to students, but teachers and administrators

Higher education needs to

take notice of the impact

and importance of hope

as it relates to a student’s

academic success, retention

and, ultimately, graduation.


Hofstra HORIZONS

should also be able to display hopeful thinking in order to effectively teach students the best practices. Educators can maintain a belief system that multiple strategies to success are important, but we also must believe in these strategies in order for them to actually work.

Hopeful Intervention at Hofstra

The Academic Affairs Committee of the Hofstra University Senate proposed the development of a course to assist struggling undergraduate students (those on probation) in meeting their academic goals. Although the original intent may not have been to enhance student hope levels, we have found that providing students with academic success strategies, and information on University resources has offered students alternative pathways and agentic thoughts toward reaching their academic goals.

The UNIV 1: Academic Success course was developed to provide academic and non-academic support and reinforce the availability of campus resources for students placed on academic probation. The course is presented online in 10 modules. Students learn study skills and methods to balance personal issues, social lives, work roles, and course

requirements in order to be academically successful. Since the focus of the course is on building skills to facilitate a sense of confidence in their educational performance, or academic agency, students are asked to volunteer to complete the Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS) at the beginning and end of the course.

Results indicated that students’ cumulative GPA increased upon completion of the UNIV 1: Academic Success course. The impact of hope scores on GPA was also investigated. Students were categorized as being of high, medium, or low hope by scores from the Dispositional Hope Scale. Once students were grouped, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) on beginning semester GPAs by student hope level was performed. Students did

not differ significantly in GPA by the level of hope they possessed at the beginning of the semester, F(2, 230) = .49, p > .05 (see Table 1 for mean GPAs). To investigate the effect of hope level on end of semester GPA, a one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed with the students’ end of semester GPA entered as the dependent variable, the level of hope as the independent variable, and students’ prior GPA as the covariate. After adjusting for prior GPA levels, there was a significant effect of hope level on end of semester GPA, F(2, 229) = 5.86, p < .05, partial ² =.05, with high hope students obtaining significantly higher end of semester GPAs than low and medium hope students (see Table 1). Figure 1 shows the positive trend for post-UNIV 01 GPA by hope level.

Implications

Students who completed the UNIV 1: Academic Success course showed a statistically significant increase from beginning semester GPA to end of semester GPA. Hope theory would suggest that this is because students were provided with strategies and tools that supported agency beliefs as well as clear pathways to increase their performance. The course was designed specifically to teach positive academic skills and behaviors and help students set reasonable academic goals that could be managed over time, thus encouraging an active orientation toward positive

Table 1Student hope and GPA levels prior to and after UNIV 01

NBeginning of Semester

GPA Mean and Standard Deviation

End of Semester GPA Mean and

Standard Deviation

Low HopeM = 42, SD = 5.24 70 M =1.65, SD = .37 M =1.81, SD =.42

Medium HopeM = 50, SD = 1.57 81 M =1.66, SD =.48 M =1.94, SD = .36

High HopeM = 57, SD = 2.99 82 M =1.71, SD = .37 M =2.03, SD = .38

Figure 1Student post-UNIV 01 GPA by hope level

Post- UNIV 01

GPA

Low Hope Medium Hope High Hope


Hofstra HORIZONS

academic behaviors. Training in specific skills like time management and study behaviors, and building adequate support systems is a way to maximize hopeful beliefs about students’ academic futures. As it is anticipated that this facilitation of positive belief systems will positively impact GPA and the probability of these students being retained and graduating, additional hopeful interventions both in and out of the classroom are recommended. Higher education can support students’ academic success by continuing to develop initiatives that enhance students’ hope levels by:1. Supporting them in defining their

goals.2. Assisting in the development of

multiple strategies to achieve their goals.

3. Assisting in the development of internal and external networks of support when challenges/obstacles occur.

ReferencesAmerican College Testing Service. (2005). ACT college readiness benchmarks,

retention, and first year college GPA: What’s the connection? Iowa: ACT Inc.

Cohen, A., & Brawer, F. (2002). The American community college, 4th ed.,

San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Grasgreen, A. (2012, July 6). Researchers apply hope theory to boost college

student success. Inside Higher Ed.

Ishitani, T.T., & DesJardins, S.L. (2002). A longitudinal investigation of dropout from

college in the United States. Journal of College Student Retention, 4(2), 173-201.

Kuh, G.D. (2007). What student engagement data tell us about college

readiness. Peer Review – American Association of College & Universities, 9(1), 4-8.

Lopez, S. (2009). Hope, academic success, and the Gallup Student Poll. Gallup Inc.

Lopez, S.J., Bouwkamp, J., Edwards, L.E., & Teramoto Pedrotti, J. (2000). Making

hope happen via brief interventions. Presented at the 2nd Positive Psychology Summit in Washington, DC.

National Center for Educational Statistics. (2009). Fast facts. Washington D.C.:

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

Snyder, C.R., Harris, C., Anderson, J.R., Holleran, S.A., Irving, L.M., Sigmon,

S.T., Oshinoubu, L., Gibb, J., Langelle, C., & Harney, P. (1991). The will and the ways: Development and validation of an individual-differences measure of hope. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 570-585.

Holly Seirup is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Counseling and Mental Health Professions in the School of Health Sciences and Human Services. Before joining the Hofstra faculty in 2006, Dr. Seirup held various positions in student affairs. She continues to focus on the college student experience by serving as the faculty advisor to Chi Sigma Iota, the international honor society for counselors, as well as a faculty mentor for Hofstra University Honors College. Dr. Seirup is an active member of various professional and community organizations, having served on the board of Long Island Lutheran Middle and High School, the President’s Advisory Council for the Nassau County Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and the editorial review board of the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. She has published and presented at numerous regional, national, and international conferences on a variety of topics, including the impact of hope on academic success, the transition from high school to college, mental health issues on the college campus, and safety issues in schools. Her research interests focus on mental health, transition issues, academic success, school engagement, and persistence.

Sage Rose is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Mental Health Professions in the School of Health Sciences and Human Services. Dr. Rose’s current research explores the hopeful dispositions of students as they work to attain their academic goals. Her work focuses on building hope among struggling student populations. These populations range from alternative high school students to undergraduate students on academic probation. Her past research has examined the academic domain specificity of hope and how it differs across subject areas like math and reading. As a doctoral student, she created the Math Hope Scale, which successfully predicts academic outcomes such as math grades and ACT scores. Dr. Rose teaches graduate courses such as Tests and Measurement, Research Methodology, Motivation and Emotion in Education and Counseling Contexts, and various levels of statistics courses across program areas. Dr. Rose enjoys working with students and their own research and currently supervises doctoral dissertations in the School of Education.


Russell L. Burke, Ph.D., Professor of Biology

Kaetlyn Kerr, Biology graduate student

In North America, Lyme disease is the most common tick-borne disease, with more than 150,000

cases reported since 1982, and 20,000 new cases annually. Lyme disease (LD) causes a bewildering array of symptoms, from initial rash, fever, headache, and fatigue, to more serious problems with joints, the heart, and the nervous system; delayed treatment can lead to disabling illness. The economic costs of LD are estimated conservatively at more than $200 million annually in the United States. Understanding of this disease has increased enormously since its discovery by the medical community in 1975. For example, we now know that

LD is caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi in the United States, while other Borrelia species cause LD in Europe. Most LD cases can be treated successfully with antibiotics if treatment begins early. We know that the “hard-bodied” ticks (genus Ixodes) are the vectors that move Borrelia from host to host, including humans. And we know that Ixodes ticks can use lots of different animals for hosts.

But one of the strange things about Lyme disease is its distribution in the eastern United States, where it is common in the northeast and northern midwest but rare throughout the south (Figure 1a). This variation is extreme,

What Causes the Strange North American Pattern of Lyme Disease?

Lyme disease (LD) causes

a bewildering array of

symptoms, from initial rash,

fever, headache, and

fatigue, to more serious

problems with joints, the

heart, and the nervous

system; delayed treatment

can lead to disabling illness.


Hofstra HORIZONS

ranging from a high of 37.8 confirmed cases/100,000 people in New Jersey to a low of 0.4 confirmed cases/100,000 people in South Carolina. The same trend is reported in pet dogs that test positive for exposure to Borrelia, so this likely indicates a trend in the disease prevalence. In the eastern United States, the black-legged tick is the specific tick that spreads LD. However, the black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) occurs throughout the eastern United States, including the south, where LD is rare (Figure 1b). Along with the tick are many of the same hosts it feeds on elsewhere. Why, if the disease organism, the ticks, and the animal hosts all occur over this large range, is LD rare in the south? It’s certainly possible that if we knew what caused this variation in LD, we might be able to reduce its incidence in the north.

Four hypotheses have been suggested to explain this variation in LD prevalence, including the dilution effect hypothesis, the phenology hypothesis, the black-legged tick abundance hypothesis, and the black-legged tick genetic hypothesis. In 2009 the National Science Foundation awarded our laboratory and a consortium of five other universities $2.5 million to test these hypotheses and help public health agencies develop better LD prevention strategies. We immediately started a series of field and laboratory projects that eventually spread over eight states, collecting a wide variety of data on LD incidence, black-legged ticks, and their hosts. Now, three years later, this work has started to produce some amazing results. In this article we’ll discuss some of these results in the context of the various hypotheses we set out to test.

The dilution effect hypothesis is based on the fact that, like many other diseases that involve multiple hosts, LD

hosts vary in “reservoir competence.” This means that while the ticks can feed on many hosts, those hosts vary in their ability to pass the Borrelia bacteria on to ticks that might feed on the same host later. Here in the northeast, where LD is common, the most common host for black-legged ticks is white-footed mice.

When a Borrelia-infected tick bites an uninfected mouse, the mouse becomes infected. Any other ticks that later bite that same mouse are also likely to get infected. Therefore white-footed mice are highly reservoir competent, as are chipmunks and shrews and some birds. Having lots of reservoir competent hosts

Russell L. Burke, Ph.D., Professor of Biology

Kaetlyn Kerr, Biology graduate student

Figure 1a. Reported human Lyme disease cases in 2011. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Figure 1b. Range of Lyme disease vectors Ixodes scapularis in the east and central United States, I. pacificus in the west.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Established* and reported** distribution of the Lyme disease vectors Ixodes scapularis (I. dammini) and Ixodes pacificus, by county, United States, 1907-1996.

*at least 6 ticks or 2 life stages (larvae, nymphs, adults) identified. **at least 1 tick identified.

Established Ixodes scapularis Reported Ixodes scapularis Established Ixodes pacificus Reported Ixodes pacificus


Hofstra HORIZONS

helps keep LD common in an area. But many other tick hosts, such as opossums and deer and some other birds, are not highly reservoir competent. Reservoir incompetent hosts can be a dead end for a Borrelia infection; they can dilute the effect of reservoir competent hosts, and they make it less likely that LD can persist in an area. An extreme example is the western fence lizard, which lives in California and other western states. Western fence lizards are so reservoir incompetent, and are so important as hosts to ticks there, that human cases of LD

are quite rare where western fence lizards are common (Figures 1a and 1b). We know that lizards are far more common in the southern United States than in the north, and some of these southern lizards also have low reservoir competence, and that black-legged ticks feed on lizards there. From the start of our project, we considered the possibility that these lizards might be important enough to keep LD levels very low. Our Hofstra lab specializes in reptile ecology, so our particular role in this project was to explore the importance of lizards to LD prevalence.

We did this using a variety of techniques. First, we established field research sites in Rhode Island, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. At each of these sites we counted tick hosts by installing three arrays of traps to capture small mammals (like mice and shrews), medium mammals (like raccoons and opossums), and lizards (like skinks and fence lizards) (Figure 2). We used camera traps to detect larger mammals (like deer and coyotes) (Figure 3). We

used these traps to capture animals that might have ticks on them, and then we counted ticks on the animals we caught. We removed ticks so they could be tested to determine whether they carried LD, and we took tissue samples from hosts to see whether they were infected too. We surveyed for a wide variety of tick hosts simultaneously over a wide geographic area that included the ranges of many different tick hosts and LD prevalence, and we standardized our techniques so that we could easily compare results among all the sites. These special aspects of our work put us in the position to test these hypotheses far more thoroughly than anyone had done before.

We are starting to pull all the data together for analysis, but we can already see some clear results. Our Hofstra lab focused on the South Carolina and New Jersey sites, so that is the focus of this article. We’re also going to talk only about the juvenile ticks, and not the adult ticks. That’s because LD transmission has to go through the juveniles — if they don’t get LD, the adults won’t either.

First, there were many more lizard species in the south than in the north, with the special addition of four skink species. North American skinks are part of a large and diverse lizard family that lives on every continent except Antarctica. Skinks have lots of behavioral variation (many give birth to live young, many provide parental care) and lots of size variation (from a few centimeters long to more than 35 cm long). But all skinks have much the same appearance, generally long and sleek, with fairly small legs, big heads, and cylindrical bodies. Skinks can reach high densities in the southern United States, and happily coexist with people in suburban and rural areas. Many

Figure 2. Graduate student Kaetlyn Kerr holding a broad headed skink (Plestiodon laticeps) in South Carolina.

North American skinks

are part of a large and

diverse lizard family that

lives on every continent

except Antarctica.

From the start of our

project, we considered the

possibility that these lizards

might be important enough

to keep LD levels very low.


Hofstra HORIZONS

southerners know skinks very well, and they are called by a variety of local names such as scorpion lizards and red-headed scorpions (some people mistakenly believe skinks are poisonous). In many places in the southern United States, skinks are the most common lizards. And the work done so far suggests that skinks are LD reservoir incompetent, so they could play an important role in suppressing LD.

We found that in the north, where there were few lizards, juvenile ticks were feeding almost exclusively on small mammals, as other researchers had found previously. These were places where LD is very common. However, when skinks were present in an area, juvenile ticks were much more likely to be on the skinks than on the small mammals (Figure 4). There could be many reasons for this difference — maybe, overall, black-legged ticks like lizards as hosts better than they like mammals, and so they take lizards wherever lizards are available. Or maybe the ticks feed on the mammals and the lizards at whatever rate these hosts are encountered, but mammals are better at removing ticks. We are planning more research to investigate these possibilities, and other team members are looking deeper into the reservoir competence of southern lizards. In either case, this finding seems to support the dilution effect hypothesis, suggesting that at least one reason LD is rare in the southern U.S. is that the lizards there replace small mammals as important hosts for juvenile ticks, and that the lizards are less reservoir competent, thus blocking LD transmission. Interestingly, climate change models predict that southern lizards will expand their ranges northward as temperatures warm across the United States.

The phenology hypothesis is based on differences in the timing and development rate of the black-legged tick juvenile stages. The word “phenology” refers to the study of regular patterns of animal and plant behavior, such as seasonal bird migration and the timing of autumn leaf

fall. Ticks have four life stages: egg, larval, nymph, and adult. In the northern United States, black-legged ticks have a two-year life cycle: adult females feed and mature in the fall, overwinter on the ground, and lay eggs in the spring. The larvae hatch from the eggs in summer and feed on

Figure 3. White-tailed deer and coyote detected by camera traps at our South Carolina field site.


Hofstra HORIZONS

small-bodied hosts, then molt and become nymphs. The nymphs overwinter and feed on small-bodied hosts the next spring and summer, molt again, and become adults. LD is maintained in this system because larvae feed on hosts that have already been infected by nymphs. The phenology hypothesis is based on the idea that in the southern United States the climate is warmer, and the tick life cycle is sped up, and larvae often feed on hosts that have not yet been infected by nymphs. We sampled ticks at all of our field sites, using standardized techniques, so our results would be completely comparable. We’re still waiting to analyze the rest of this year’s data, but so far we’ve found that southern juvenile ticks had much the same phenology as did juvenile northern ticks. That is a challenge to the phenology hypothesis.

The data from our tick surveys and our counts of ticks on hosts also helped us test the black-legged tick abundance hypothesis, which is the suggestion that while black-legged ticks do occur throughout the south, they never reach high enough numbers to sustain LD in host populations. Like many researchers before us, we had great difficulty collecting ticks in the south, even using the same sampling techniques that were highly successful in the north. But while we were trying and failing to collect southern ticks, the small mammals – and especially the skinks – had plenty of ticks on them. Clearly there are substantial numbers of ticks in the south; the impression that black-legged ticks are rare in the south seems to prevail, at least in part, because they’re difficult to sample there.

Obviously, the tick-collecting techniques we used successfully in the north don’t work as well in the south, and that must

be explained. The black-legged tick genetic hypothesis is based on the previous findings that there are genetic differences between black-legged ticks in different parts of the country, resulting in somewhat separate subpopulations. Maybe the southern black-legged tick subpopulations don’t transmit the Borrelia infections as effectively, and maybe they prefer lizard hosts over mammal hosts. Our tick-collecting techniques involve sampling in areas where we would expect to find ticks searching for mammals, whereas ticks searching for lizards might be someplace else. Other team members are currently looking at the possible impact of genetic differences in tick subpopulations on host-searching behavior.

LD is an important health concern in Europe as well, where they have different Ixodes ticks and different Borrelia. In Europe wall lizards (genus Podarcis) often host ticks, and it appears that wall lizards are reservoir

competent for European Borrelia. Therefore, in Europe, lizards don’t reduce LD risk; rather, they may increase it. The two common wall lizard species in Europe have been introduced into numerous places in North America, including Long Island! Wall lizards are well named; they co-exist very well with people in rural, suburban, and fully urban areas and are often seen on walls. For example, there are now large and stable wall lizard populations in New York City. There is no immediate concern that these lizards will spread LD into our cities, I personally have seen and captured many hundreds of wall lizards from most of the introduced populations, and have never seen a tick on any of them. However, wall lizards do live here in some areas where black-legged ticks occur, and where LD cases are common. We decided to investigate the potential role that the introduced wall lizards might play as they spread into more areas in the United States with black-legged ticks and LD.

Figure 4. Five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) with four black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) nymphs attached around the front limbs.

Photo courtesy of Graham Hickling.


Hofstra HORIZONS

We used a two-pronged approach: first, to find out whether the wall lizards are reservoir competent for the North American Borrelia, and second, whether black-legged ticks would even choose to feed on wall lizards. Our collaborators at University of Tennessee (UT) tried to do the competency tests, but they couldn’t get Borrelia-infected tick nymphs to even feed on the lizards! The ticks didn’t seem to recognize the lizards as potential hosts. Here at Hofstra we did host-choice experiments with larval ticks, offering them a choice of a high-quality host (mouse) and wall lizards. In contrast to the UT results, in

our studies the ticks went rapidly to the wall lizards and chose them as hosts. We’re not sure what this contrast means — this could be due to use of larval ticks in one case and nymphal ticks in another, or some other aspect of experimental design. Next summer we will repeat and expand these experiments.

Over the next two years we will be putting all our data in order and carry out the most intensive data analysis, with our most important results emerging soon after that. It is certainly possible that we will find support for

more than one of the four hypotheses, but, regardless, we expect to enhance understanding of the processes leading to the patterns we see in LD distribution and abundance, particularly in the south. Furthermore we plan that our results will help inform public health workers and the public about their present and potential future risk of LD in the southern United States, where there is high uncertainty among the general public about LD and other tick-borne diseases. Our work will also result in improved forecasts of LD risk patterns, vector management and public education regarding LD.

Russell L. Burke’s longstanding interest in reptiles was the major influence in his decision to pursue a career in biology. His biggest complaint growing up in northern Ohio was that there were no venomous snakes near where he lived, and he seized the earliest opportunities to visit Florida where they could be found. He earned a B.S. in zoology from Ohio State University. While reading Archie Carr’s work on sea turtles he was especially taken by Carr’s argument that wildlife can be harvested sustainably and pay for their own conservation if they are managed wisely. This led to graduate work on gopher tortoise conservation and an M.S. in wildlife ecology from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Burke earned a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Michigan where his work involved investigations of ecology and evolution of midwestern freshwater turtles.

His main research foci have concerned the ecology, evolution, and conservation of reptiles, particularly the manipulation of populations. This can be valuable when populations are small,

such as rare and desirable species; when they are too big, such as for pest and disease species; and when they are valuable, such as for harvested species. His current long-term projects include ecological studies of diamondback terrapins in Jamaica Bay and wood turtles in northern New Jersey, both rare species. He has conducted numerous shorter studies on the ecology of invasive Italian wall lizards on Long Island and in Italy. He has been involved with studies of Lyme disease, its tick vectors, and its wildlife hosts, since 2002. He regularly collaborates with colleagues from the American Museum of Natural History, Queens College, University of Rhode Island, Michigan State University, University of Tennessee (Knoxville), Georgia Southern University, and Museo Civico di Zoologia (Rome). He has received grants to support his research from the Hudson River Foundation, the New York City Environmental Fund, the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Park Service.

At Hofstra Dr. Burke teaches ecology, evolution, conservation biology, urban ecology, and wildlife disease ecology, and he is one of the coordinators of the new Urban Ecology program. He co-teaches Hofstra’s biennial biology-geology study abroad class on the Evolutionary Ecology and Geology of Ecuador, including the Galápagos Islands. He has an active research laboratory that involves high school students, Hofstra undergraduates, and usually six to eight graduate students in every aspect of his research projects.


Numerous reports have repeatedly warned that the United States is falling

dangerously behind the rest of the world in math and science. The Hofstra University educational app development team is designing a videogame app based on a commonly played street game to help first to third grade students gain a strong foundation in introductory mathematical concepts such as addition and subtraction. Our model will advance beyond much current drill and practice technology in elementary education. The formal objectives of the project are: 1) to

design and test TOPS, a videogame app that gives students a deeper understanding of mathematics; 2) to implement a business plan that will make TOPS widely available in the United States and abroad, via mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads; and 3) to use games that are embedded in neighborhood culture as a bridge to academic learning. By playing TOPS, students will improve their mathematics fluency and motivation and begin to see themselves as proficient in math. The TOPS application will be tested by targeted users, refined, and then made available through the Apple and

Android Apps Stores. The educational app development team is made up of faculty and students from Hofstra University’s graduate and undergraduate programs in educational technology, computer science, business administration and fine arts.

Why We Need to Pay Attention to Students’ Cultural Backgrounds

In a 2006 international test repeated in 2009, it was revealed that U.S. students ranked lower than students in 39 other countries in math and science, and that black and Hispanic students scored lower than white students (Fleischman,

Roberto Joseph, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Educational Technology in the Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership

TOPS: A Street Game App for Learning First to Third Grade Mathematics

Photos courtesy of Roberto Joseph.

Hofstra HORIZONS


Hopstock, Pelczar, & Shelley, 2010). Numerous high-level reports have repeatedly warned that the nation is falling dangerously behind the rest of the world in math and science (for example, a report to the nation, Before It’s Too Late (2000), by the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching). The causes for this lack of ability on the part of U.S. students are complex, but the data point to a need for new kinds of classroom strategies, especially for minority students and young women. Examinations of mathematics preparation in more successful countries indicate that a strong emphasis on math instruction should begin in the early grades and that teaching and textbooks must become less mechanical and more interactive. For minority youth, many of whom are concentrated in urban areas, the lack of basic math competency is exacerbated by under-resourced schools that purchase “drill and practice” software that emphasizes rote memorization and also by a crucial lack of attention to the students’ cultural backgrounds.

Designing and Developing a Culturally Relevant Educational App

To address this chronic problem, Dr. Roberto Joseph started a new educational app development team, based in the School of Education, for the purpose of designing educational apps that are mindful of students’ cultural backgrounds. For their first project, the team has created a math app designed to help first to third grade urban students gain a strong foundation in introductory mathematical concepts. Based on a commonly played street game named skelly, TOPS has players move a bottle top around a series of squares containing numbers. In the actual street game, players compete against each other to complete a number sequence by flicking bottle caps from square to square on game boards drawn in chalk on streets and in playgrounds. The game has been around in urban communities for generations and will be familiar to both young students and their parents. TOPS is designed

to show, through fun and exciting game play, the important concepts of arithmetic by using applications of mobile devices such as the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

As they play TOPS, the students are engaged in a process that incorporates their own local interests into learning mathematics content. The players move quickly through a dangerous course, avoiding pitfalls, always seeking the safety of home bases, and progress by using their ability to add, subtract, divide and multiply to slide from box to box – ultimately hoping to reach the center unscathed. Skill and strategy play important roles in the players’ success, as they must overcome obstacles found in the streets of their urban community.

The concept of the game is to lead students through a series of activities in which they have to complete calculations by moving their caps to the correct solutions (the numbers on the game board) to progress to the next level. By moving the bottle cap from number to number, they engage in activities that

Examinations of mathematics

preparation in more successful

countries indicate that a

strong emphasis on math

instruction should begin in the

early grades and that teaching

and textbooks must become

less mechanical and more

interactive.

Photos courtesy of Roberto Joseph.


Hofstra HORIZONS

help them understand counting, positive and negative numbers, the number line, and place value. The game also tells students (and their teachers and parents) how much they have learned by keeping track of their progress on a knowledge map. For each concept learned, the students are rewarded by moving to the next level. The point of the game is to engage students in essential questions such as: How is math relevant to me? How can numbers be expressed, ordered, and compared? How do units

within a system relate to each other? How does the position of a digit in a number affect its value? The overall goals of the program are to 1) improve students’ mathematics proficiency and fluency, 2) increase students’ motivation in math, and 3) positively impact students’ math identities.

TOPS is an educational application being developed for national and potential worldwide use on mobile devices. It is being developed with GameSalad’s free drag-and-drop game creation platform, which allows designers to rapidly construct, publish and distribute original games for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android devices and the Web. This new model, which uses the excitement of game-based learning, will advance beyond much current educational technology in math, which employs onscreen lectures and simple drill and practice (such as Khan Academy). TOPS also uses a strategy called “culturally relevant learning,” which uses the prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant and effective. Culturally responsive games in fields other than mathematics include Rappin Reader (Pinkard, 2001), Riding the Freedom Train (Leonard, Davis, & Sidler, 2005) and CompuGirls (Scott, Aist & Hood, 2009).

Finally, this project’s design is based on the premise that technology-based learning environments are transformative. Educational research on the use of video games suggests that they

appeal even to those students who do not experience success in school because they support students in asking questions of personal relevance. For many minority youth, video games offer the opportunity to attain success in mathematics or science, where oftentimes academic achievement is fleeting. Mobile devices are the technology of the future, and as they become more affordable, more and more students will have them, and school districts will use them for delivering learning activities, freeing up teachers’ time for more effective individualized instruction and assessment.

Spreading the Word About TOPS and Other Educational Apps

We will make the TOPS application widely accessible through distribution venues via the Apple and Android Apps Stores for mobile devices. Hofstra’s School of Education has worked with a number of school districts in New York City and on Long Island, and initially we will use these connections to distribute the game to elementary school teachers and their students. Dr. Joseph has also developed CIRCUIT MATH (2012), which has received very high marks from the prestigious Children’s Technology Review.

CIRCUIT MATH is a math puzzle that challenges the user the moment he or she begins to play. Players can choose from six addition levels and six subtraction levels, with each level offering endless combinations of numbers so no two levels are alike. To solve each puzzle, players must place each circuit in

Mobile devices are the

technology of the future,

and as they become more

affordable, more and more

students will have them,

and school districts will

use them for delivering

learning activities, freeing

up teachers’ time for more

effective individualized

instruction and assessment.


Hofstra HORIZONS

position so that each number is the sum/difference of the two numbers below it. Tap the circuits to swap numbers, and the wires between the numbers light up in green when the combination is correct. Users can try to beat their own best time or compete with other players in Game Center to see who can complete a level with the best time. Each level has its own leader board in Game Center and an endless number of puzzles within each level.

The Hofstra website will feature links to TOPS and CIRCUIT MATH, and the educational app development team will showcase the new software at educational technology and game design conferences, such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA), National Educational Computing Conference (NECC), and Technology + Learning Conference (T+L). The team will also gain exposure by participating in gaming conferences such as Game Developers Conference and Serious Games Summit, and describing project outcomes in articles in educational and mathematics journals. Finally, Hofstra recently launched an annual conference, Integrating

Technology Into the K-8 Curriculum, which last year was attended by more than 50 Long Island school districts, and this conference will be a platform to highlight and share the TOPS and CIRCUIT MATH apps.

Hofstra Educational App Development Team

The multidisciplinary team includes experts in the fields of educational technology, culturally relevant pedagogy, computer science, graphic design, and business administration. The faculty have had extensive experience in helping underrepresented minority students upgrade their skills in science and technology and in training teachers to employ methods that are effective in deepening students’ understanding of mathematics content.

ReferencesFleischman, H., Hopstock, P., Pelczar, M., & Shelley, B. (2010). Highlights from Pisa:

Performance of U.S. 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics, and science literacy in an international context. (NCES 2011-033). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Joseph, R. (2012). TOPS (1.1) [iPhone Application]. Freeport, NY:

Dr. Roberto Joseph & CulturePlay LLC.

Joseph, R. (2012). TOPS (1.1) [iPAD Application]. Freeport, NY:

Dr. Roberto Joseph & CulturePlay LLC.

Joseph, R. (2012). Circuit Math (1.1) [iPhone Application]. Retrieved from:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/circuit-math/id535579876?mt=8

Joseph, R. (2012). Circuit MathHD (1.1) [iPad Application]. Retrieved from: https://

itunes.apple.com/us/app/circuit-mathhd/id554832061?mt=8

Leonard, J., Davis, J., & Sidler, J. (2005). Cultural relevance and computer-assisted

instruction. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 37(3), 263-284.

The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century.

(2000), Before It’s Too Late: A Report to the Nation from The National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Pinkard, N. (2001). Rappin’ Reader and Say, Say Oh Playmate: Using children’s

childhood songs as literacy scaffolds in computer-based learning environments. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 25(1), 17-34.

Scott, K.A., Aist, G. & Hood, D. (2009), COMPUGIRLS: Designing a culturally

relevant technology program. Educational Technology, 49 (6), 34-39

Roberto Joseph, associate professor of educational technology in the Hofstra University School of Education’s Department of Teaching, Literacy and Leadership, is the director of the Technology for Learning Master of Arts program. His primary research interest centers on understanding how the combination of culture and educational games can improve student learning. He is a Gates Millennium Scholar and the director for Project Promise, Teacher Opportunity Corps (TOC), a program funded by the New York State Education Department’s Office of K-16 Initiatives and Access, which is designed to increase the number of historically underrepresented and economically disadvantaged individuals in teaching careers.

Gaurav Kashyap, graduate student in Hofstra’s Master of Business Administration program, is a systems engineer with extensive experience in research, development and testing in the information technology industry.

Sarah Christian, a recent Bachelor of Arts graduate of Hofstra’s Fine Arts-Design program and a specialist in computer-based graphic design, is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was consistently on the Dean’s List.


Introduction

“When John was in junior high school, the teacher gave a quiz, in one of his

classes. After completing the quiz the students handed their papers to the

student across the aisle to be graded. When his paper was returned, John

found that he had received a grade of 95. The teacher went around the

room calling on the students to stand and give their score. John eventually

stood and immediately felt that he wouldn’t be able to say his grade of

95. He quickly considered saying ’85.’ But that number seemed too daunting

also. He thought for a moment, quickly said ‘75’ and took his seat.”

— Manning, 1999, p. 124

This is not an uncommon predicament for persons who stutter (PWS), as many have

gone to great lengths to avoid stuttering moments. As someone who stutters, I have experienced several moments when my inability to say a word initiated the “journey” to a different and undesired utterance. Although developmental stuttering (hereafter “stuttering”) is often identified by the involuntary, overt disruptions in speech flow (e.g., blocks, repetitions of sounds, syllables, and words, and prolongation of sounds), it is the covert symptoms (e.g., fear, shame, and embarrassment) that are usually the most debilitating. In addition, PWS may have secondary characteristics such as eye blinks and body twitches that

produce further desire to hide the disorder. The onset of stuttering is usually between the ages of 2 and 5, so these behaviors are often ingrained from many years of repetition and can be difficult to eliminate.

The social, emotional, and cognitive tolls that stuttering can take were likely the impetus for PWS to try outrageous treatment techniques centuries ago, including cutting the frenulum of the tongue, moving to a different country, placing a fork in the alveolar arch of the lower jaw, and pressing the thumb against the chin while speaking (Klingbeil, 1939). As Van Riper (1973) wrote in regard to some of the horrific treatments used throughout history,

Jason H. Davidow, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences

Working to Advance Stuttering Treatment


Hofstra HORIZONS

“… when one stutters terribly and there is no other recourse in the world, one will put up with any folly and endure anything for the hint of hope” (p. 22).

Fortunately, remediation for stuttering has come a long way since the use of those “therapies.” Preschoolers who start treatment close enough to the onset of the disorder can be rid of their stuttering, with some not even remembering that they ever stuttered. Those programs using operant conditioning principles have reported the greatest reductions in stuttering for this age group (Harrison & Onslow, 2010). The most successful treatments for adolescents and adults who stutter include the use of fluency-inducing conditions (FICs), which are speaking styles that temporarily eliminate or substantially reduce stuttering moments. The FICs that result in the largest stuttering reductions include singing, chorus reading (reading simultaneously with another speaker), rhythmic speech (aka metronome-paced speech; usually instated by producing one syllable or word per beat of a metronome), and prolonged speech (stretching out one’s

sounds, syllables, and words; Andrews, Howie, Dozsa, & Guitar, 1982; Davidow, Bothe, Andreatta, & Ye, 2009). Singing and chorus reading have not been the foundation of treatment programs, but rhythmic speech and prolonged speech have. These latter two FICs have been at the center of my research, and they will be discussed further in the following pages.

Prolonged Speech

Prolonged speech treatment programs involve shaping an initially slow, prolonged, “stretchy,” and unnatural-sounding speaking style (e.g., “How are you” is produced as “H-h-h-h-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-w-w a-a-a-a-r-r-r-r-e y-y-y-o-o-o-o-o-u-u-u”) into a natural-sounding pattern produced at normal speaking rates. Other activities to transfer the treatment gains to the real world and maintain them are also included in most programs. The literature shows that treatment programs using prolonged speech have produced the greatest reductions in stuttering (Andrews, Guitar, & Howie, 1980; Bothe, Davidow, Bramlett, & Ingham, 2006), and positive social, emotional, and

The most successful

treatments for adolescents

and adults who stutter

include the use of fluency-

inducing conditions (FICs),

which are speaking styles that

temporarily eliminate or

substantially reduce

stuttering moments.

Figure 1. A person who stutters using the Modifying Phonation Intervals (MPI) system. The accelerometer is housed within a Velcro® neckband. The MPI system records all phonated intervals (PIs) and supplies auditory and visual (the green and pink dots on the screen) feedback to the speaker regarding the length of the PIs.


Hofstra HORIZONS

cognitive outcomes (Bothe et al., 2006). Therefore, prolonged speech programs can be viewed as the most beneficial for reducing the breadth of symptoms of stuttering in adolescents and adults who stutter.

Modifying Phonation Intervals

A treatment program for adults, adolescents, and school-age children who stutter that can be considered a variation of prolonged speech, and one that I completed when I was 23 years old, is titled Modifying Phonation Intervals (MPI; Davidow, 2012; Ingham et al., 2001). Whereas most prolonged speech programs have the extension of speech elements as the treatment goal (e.g., stretching out syllables or blending words together), the MPI program targets a reduction in the number of short phonation intervals (PIs). A PI, stated simply, is a measure of the duration of vocal cord vibration measured from the surface of the throat. The vocal cords turn on and off while we speak; that is, periods of vibration (or phonation) during production of voiced sounds (those that require vocal cord vibration) alternate with periods of no vibration during the production of voiceless sounds and pauses in speech. The MPI system (Ingham, Moglia, Kilgo, & Felino, 2006) records all PIs (periods of vibration) from the surface of the throat via an accelerometer. The accelerometer sends a signal to the MPI box (see Figure 1), which is connected to a computer. The hardware and accompanying software allow for the efficient collection of many PIs, resulting in the ability to display a distribution of all PIs (see Table 1). Adults who stutter produce the majority of PIs in the range of 10-1000 milliseconds during normal speaking tasks (reading, monologue, and conversation), with an average of

approximately 150 PIs in 1 minute of speech during these tasks.

In addition to the idea that prolonging speech segments (e.g., producing longer vowels or syllables) can decrease stuttering, two pieces of literature provided the initial motivation for focusing on reducing the occurrence of short PIs rather than directly extending phonation, as is done in most prolonged speech programs. The first was a study by Adams and Hayden (1976) showing that adults who stutter had slower laryngeal reaction times than normally fluent controls. Subsequent studies confirmed this initial finding (Bloodstein & Ratner, 2008). The other study by Manning and Coufal (1976) provided “additional evidence that stuttering is increased during speech that requires the rapid alternation of phonated and nonphonated sounds” (Ingham et al., 2001, p. 1229). Therefore, Gow and Ingham (1992) concluded that reducing the frequency of short PIs should reduce stuttering, since speech containing longer PIs would require slower and less frequent phonation changes (i.e., the vocal cords would turn on and off less often).

Clients performing the MPI program are taught to reduce their pretreatment short PI (usually those below 200 milliseconds) frequency by 50 percent. The computer program supplies audiovisual feedback regarding the duration of the PIs so that the speaker can adjust his or her speech pattern (see Figure 1). Early laboratory studies showed that reducing the frequency of short PIs by 50 percent resulted in the elimination, or virtual

elimination, of stuttering moments (Gow & Ingham, 1992; Ingham, Montgomery, & Ulliana, 1983). A more recent treatment study (Ingham et al., 2001) reported that five males who stutter ranging in age from 18 to 28 demonstrated zero or near-zero stuttering in beyond-clinic speaking contexts one year after treatment. In addition, “all participants provided personal testimony that the treatment led to major positive lifestyle changes” (Ingham et al., 2001, p. 1241), and some participants reported “that they now always feel like normal speakers and do not consider themselves to have a stuttering problem” (Ingham et al., 2001, p. 1241). Their speech was also natural sounding (see Figure 2), which

Table 1An example distribution of phonation intervals. All values are in milliseconds.

The Modifying Phonation Intervals system collects all phonation intervals

(periods of vocal fold vibration) produced in a given period of time. The phonation intervals can then be sorted

to display the values in ascending order.

Before Sorting After Sorting

167 33

33 59

246 83

83 145

408 167

59 246

376 283

579 312

283 376

145 385

312 408

763 579

648 648

385 763


Hofstra HORIZONS

is an important outcome, as many stuttering treatment programs begin with the production of unnatural-sounding speech (e.g., robotic or a very slow and stretchy pattern). More long-term outcome data will be available in the coming years due to the recent opening of an MPI clinic at The University of California at Santa Barbara (http://www.speech.ucsb.edu/clinic/). I am also happy to report that although I did not complete the entire MPI program, my percent of syllables stuttered went from approximately 20 percent during monologue tasks before the program to approximately 0.5 percent when I ended my participation. I currently stutter on only 0.5-1 percent of my syllables.

Advantages of the MPI Program

The use of a computer and accompanying hardware to measure PIs was important for finding a replicable treatment procedure (Ingham et al., 1983). Most prolonged speech programs require the clinician to perceptually judge the accuracy of the client’s speech pattern, a task that clinicians do with questionable reliability (Onslow & O’Brian, 1998). An objective measurement of the treatment target via a computer aids in this difficult task and provides a more controlled way to modify stuttering. Clients can also connect the MPI system to their home computer, which allows them to assess the targeted speech pattern at their convenience and provides the client with control during the treatment process. This self-management has been a part of many successful stuttering treatment programs. Additionally, the goal of reducing the frequency of short PIs rather than focusing on increasing the

length of speech elements (e.g., extending syllable durations) often results in natural-sounding speech early in the treatment process.

Importance of the Treatment Package

It is essential to note that in the Ingham et al. (2001) study, the reduction in the frequency of short PIs was included as part of a treatment package involving elements such as (i) the requirement of zero stuttering to progress through the treatment schedule, (ii) a self-managed, performance-contingent maintenance schedule created to sustain positive outcomes, and (iii) beyond-the-clinic speaking tasks used to ensure transfer of fluent speech to naturalistic environments (e.g., home, school, and work). It is possible that these infrastructural variables are as important as the fluency-inducing speech pattern itself (i.e., reduction in the frequency of short PIs), and they should be a part of all treatment programs that aim to reduce stuttering. One of my future goals is to integrate the entire MPI treatment package into our Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic at Hofstra University.

Phonation Intervals and the FICs

The reductions in stuttering in the previous PI literature prompted me to examine whether a reduction in the

percentage of short PIs may also be completely or partially responsible for the fluency-inducing effects of several FICs, including singing, prolonged speech, metronome-paced speech (MPS), and chorus reading. We do not know why fluency results during the production of these most powerful FICs. Identifying variables that are responsible would contribute much toward the understanding of stuttering and would support the use of that variable (e.g., reduction in the frequency of short PIs) during treatment, especially if the variable can be manipulated by clients.

Data from our lab show that speakers reduce the frequency of short PIs by an average of 50-60 percent across the following FICs: singing, prolonged speech, chorus reading, and MPS (Davidow et al., 2009; Davidow, Bothe, & Ye, 2011). Although it is too early to conclude whether or not this change is the reason for fluency during these FICs, it is a first step toward such a conclusion. Future studies in our laboratory will clarify this issue. Furthermore, even if the reduction is found to not be necessary for fluency, the results from our studies raise the interesting possibility that it could be beneficial to combine two fluency inducers. For example, if future research shows another mechanism for fluency during MPS, we could combine

Highly Natural

Highly Unnatural

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Figure 2. Speech naturalness is usually rated on a 9-point scale (Martin, Haroldson, & Triden, 1984), with “1” signifying highly natural and “9” signifying highly unnatural. Normally fluent speakers typically receive ratings of 1-3 on the scale. Although some people are trained via

videos to rate naturalness, many studies use novel listeners as judges. In addition, parameters (e.g., pitch and loudness) to focus on are not usually provided to judges by researchers.

People’s experience listening to a wide variety of speakers provides a quite dependable gauge for what is considered “natural-sounding” speech.


Hofstra HORIZONS

that fluency inducer with a reduction in the frequency of short PIs to produce a resilient stuttering reduction procedure. The fact that speakers are naturally reducing the frequency of short PIs means that less learning may be necessary (than having to introduce the change) to take advantage of this fluency inducer.

Metronome-Paced Speech (MPS)

A connection between rhythm and reductions in stuttering can be seen as far back as the third century B.C. by examining the treatment of Demosthenes (Greek orator). Demosthenes was instructed to speak while walking up a hill, and his footsteps may have provided a consistent beat. In addition, Klingbeil (1939), in his review of the history of stuttering treatments, noted that several scholars and doctors throughout the 1700s and 1800s had suggested and/or used rhythm, specifically speaking a syllable or word to each beat of a metronome, as a treatment for stuttering.

Besides prolonged speech, treatments involving MPS have produced the largest change in treatment outcome variables. Unfortunately, as is the case with prolonged speech, treatments involving MPS can result in unnatural-sounding speech. Methods have been developed for improving the naturalness of prolonged speech, as feedback in the form of listener-delivered (Ingham, Ingham, Onslow, & Finn, 1989) or self-administered (Ingham & Onslow, 1985) naturalness ratings and naturalness targets have been implemented into treatment protocols (Bothe et al., 2006). Methods to overcome the unnatural sound of MPS, however, have not been investigated to the same extent. Since prolonged speech will not be effective and/or appropriate for all clients, a focus on improving naturalness during MPS, a treatment technique that has resulted in long-term stuttering reductions for many persons who stutter (Andrews et al., 1980), seems worthwhile as a clinical question and as a means of assessing the nature of stuttered and fluent speech.

A Variation of MPS

In addition to the typical one syllable or word per beat MPS, other rhythmic patterns can be used to produce fluency in PWS. Jones and Azrin (1969), for example, altered the typical production of MPS by increasing the duration of the rhythmic pulse; instead of a 0.1-second (s) pulse produced by a metronome, the stimulus-on duration was, for example, 1 s, 2 s, 3 s, and 5 s. The time between pulses, or the stimulus-off duration, was 1 s in each condition. The 1-s condition, therefore, consisted of alternating between 1 s of speech and 1 s of silence (i.e., pause) and the 2-s condition involved alternating between 2 s of speech and 1 s of silence. Group data demonstrated that percentages of words stuttered were

Methods have been

developed for improving

the naturalness of prolonged

speech, as feedback in the

form of listener-delivered

or self-administered

naturalness ratings and

naturalness targets have

been implemented into

treatment protocols.


Hofstra HORIZONS

at or near zero when participants spoke in the 0.1-s, 0.5-s, and 1-s conditions. The trend was an increase in stuttering frequency as the stimulus-on duration increased beyond 1 s. Finn and Ingham (1994) also found that stuttering levels were at or near zero up to the 1-s condition and increased thereafter.

The rhythmic procedure used in the Jones and Azrin (1969) and Finn and Ingham (1994) studies has received little attention in the literature. This lack of attention is surprising because both papers reported large reductions in stuttering, and stimulus-on durations of 1 s to 5 s have been rated as feeling and sounding more natural than shorter durations (Finn & Ingham, 1994; Jones & Azrin, 1969). The improved naturalness with longer stimulus-on durations, coupled with the substantial stuttering reductions, has obvious treatment implications, which warrant further study of this rhythmic speaking style as a possible treatment agent.

A recent study by Davidow et al. (2011) alternated a 1-s stimulus-on duration with a 1-s stimulus-off duration. These authors found zero or near-zero stuttering with participants producing a range of stimulus-off durations between 0.77–1.17 second, suggesting that the stimulus-off duration can be shorter or longer than 1 s and still eliminate stuttering. Jones and Azrin (1969) and Finn and Ingham (1994) did not alter the pause time; that is, it was always 1 s in those studies. Several pieces of literature suggest that judges would rate rhythmic speech interspersed with stimulus-off durations shorter than 1 s as more natural than when they are 1 s or longer (e.g., Finn & Ingham, 1994; Logan, Roberts, Pretto, & Morey, 2002).

Our laboratory is presently conducting a study that expands the work of Jones and

Azrin (1969) and Finn and Ingham (1994) by examining different combinations of stimulus-on and stimulus-off durations. Preliminary data show that a reduction in the stimulus-off duration improves listener-judged and speaker-judged naturalness ratings. We presently have data from three PWS, so more experimentation is needed. Data collection for 12-15 more participants should be completed by the end of the spring 2013 semester.

Conclusion

The permanent elimination of, or substantial reduction in, the difficulties associated with stuttering requires a well-designed treatment program and a commitment by the client to follow the treatment schedule. Many of the fluency-inducing techniques, including prolonged speech and MPS, are not the most desirable as they take cognitive effort to maintain and can be unnatural

if not enough time is spent shaping the unusual-sounding speech pattern into a normal-sounding speaking style. Many speakers would rather stutter than produce slow, stretchy speech or sound like a robot. Unfortunately, many clients do not have the time, or the drive, to adhere to current treatment programs that will result in the greatest behavioral, social, emotional, and cognitive outcomes. Therefore, we must continue to update and improve treatment techniques, such as using a computer and accompanying hardware so that clients can practice at their leisure (e.g., MPI system) and making fluency-induction techniques more natural so less time is needed to shape the pattern into natural-sounding speech. These types of efforts will hopefully allow PWS to conquer their speech difficulties and be able to “say what they want to say, when they want to say it.”

ReferencesAdams, M. R., & Hayden, P. (1976). The ability of stutterers and nonstutterers to

initiate and terminate phonation during production of an isolated vowel. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 19, 290-296.

Andrews, G., Guitar, B., & Howie, P. M. (1980). Meta-analysis of the effects of

stuttering treatment. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 45, 287-307.

Andrews, G., Howie, P. M., Dozsa, M., & Guitar, B. E. (1982). Stuttering:

Speech pattern characteristics under fluency-inducing conditions. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 25, 208-216.

Bloodstein, O., & Ratner, N. B. (2008). A handbook on stuttering (6th ed.).

New York: Thomson.

Bothe, A. K., Davidow, J. H., Bramlett, R. E., & Ingham, R. J. (2006).

Stuttering treatment research 1970-2005: I. Systematic review incorporating trial quality assessment of behavioral,

... several scholars and

doctors throughout the

1700s and 1800s had

suggested and/or used

rhythm, specifically

speaking a syllable

or word to each beat

of a metronome, as

a treatment for stuttering.


Hofstra HORIZONS

cognitive, and related approaches. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15, 321-341.

Davidow, J. H. (2012). Modifying phonation interval stuttering treatment

program. In S. Jelsic Jakšic & M. Onslow (Eds.), The science and practice of stuttering treatment: A symposium (pp. 1-14). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Davidow, J. H., Bothe, A. K., Andreatta, R. D. & Ye, J. (2009). Measurement of

phonated intervals during four fluency-inducing conditions. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 52, 188-205.

Davidow, J. H., Bothe, A. K., & Ye, J. (2011). Systematic studies of modified

vocalization: Speech production changes during a variation of metronomic speech in persons who do and do not stutter. Journal of Fluency Disorders, 36, 93-109.

Finn, P., & Ingham, R. J. (1994). Stutterers’ self-ratings of how natural

speech sounds and feels. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 37, 326-340.

Gow, M. L., & Ingham, R. J. (1992). Modifying electroglottograph-identified

intervals of phonation: The effect on stuttering. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 35, 495-511.

Harrison, E., & Onslow, M. (2010). The Lidcombe program for preschool

children who stutter. In B. Guitar & R. McCauley (Eds.), Treatment of stuttering: Established and emerging interventions (pp. 118-140). Baltimore, MD: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins.

Ingham, R. J., Ingham, J. C, Onslow, M., & Finn, P. (1989). Stutterers’ self-

ratings of speech naturalness: Assessing effects and reliability. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 32, 495-504.

Ingham, R. J., Kilgo, M., Ingham, J. C., Moglia, R., Belknap, H., & Sanchez, T.

(2001). Evaluation of a stuttering treatment based on reduction of short phonation intervals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 44, 1229-1244.

Ingham, R., Moglia, R., Kilgo, M., & Felino, A. (2006). Modifying phonation

intervals stuttering treatment program: Training and evaluation system, version 1.8.0. University of California, Santa Barbara.

Ingham, R. J., Montgomery, J., & Ulliana, L. (1983). The effect of manipulating

phonation duration on stuttering. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 26, 579-587.

Jones, R. J., & Azrin, N. H. (1969). Behavioral engineering: Stuttering as a

function of stimulus duration during speech synchronization. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2, 223-229.

Klingbeil, G. M. (1939). The historical background of the modern speech

clinic. Journal of Speech Disorders, 4, 115-132.

Logan, K. J., Roberts, R. R., Pretto, A. P., & Morey, M. J. (2002). Speaking

slowly: Effects of four self-guided training approaches on adults’ speech rate and naturalness. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11, 163-174.

Manning, W. H. (1999). Progress under the surface and over time. In N. B.

Ratner & C. Healey (Eds.), Stuttering research and practice: Bridging the gap (pp. 123-129). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

The permanent

elimination of, or

substantial reduction in,

the difficulties associated

with stuttering requires

a well-designed

treatment program

and a commitment by

the client to follow the

treatment schedule.


Hofstra HORIZONS

Manning, W. H., & Coufal, K. J. (1976). The frequency of disfluencies during

phonatory transitions in stuttered and nonstuttered speech. Journal of Communication Disorders, 9, 75-81.

Martin, R. R., Haroldson, S. K., & Triden, K. (1984). Stuttering and speech

naturalness. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 49, 53-58.

.

Onslow, M, & O’Brian, S. (1998). Reliability of clinician’s judgments

about prolonged-speech targets. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 969-975.

Van Riper, C. (1973). The treatment of stuttering. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:

Prentice-Hall.

Wingate, M. E. (1969). Sound and pattern in “artificial” fluency. Journal of Speech

and Hearing Research, 12, 677-686.

Jason H. Davidow earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of California-Santa Barbara, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in communication sciences and disorders from the University of Georgia. At Hofstra Dr. Davidow teaches courses in anatomy and physiology of speech, fluency disorders, research design, and speech disorders. He is also director of the Hofstra in Australia program that runs during the January Session.

Dr. Davidow’s main research interests include stuttering treatment outcome and the measurement of speech production changes during fluency-inducing conditions (speaking styles that immediately eliminate, or substantially reduce, moments of stuttering; e.g., singing, speaking to the beat of a metronome) in persons who stutter. A major goal of Dr. Davidow’s research is to understand the cause of fluency during the production of several of the most powerful fluency-inducing conditions, and then use that information to improve stuttering treatments. A new area of inquiry is anticipation in stuttering; that is, Dr. Davidow and a colleague at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, are trying to map the neural correlates for the prediction of stuttering moments during speech production. He also collaborates with researchers at the University of Georgia, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Kentucky, and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Dr. Davidow has received grants to support his research from the National Institutes of Health, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and Hofstra University.

Dr. Davidow is also active in the local community. He is co-director of the National Stuttering Association (NSA) Long Island-Teen Chapter, and organizer and member of the NSA Long Island-Adult Chapter. The NSA is a nonprofit organization that provides support to, and advocates for, persons who stutter. In addition, he is a member of a group on Long Island for speech-language pathology professionals who stutter. Dr. Davidow has stuttered since his preschool years and desires to help others overcome the behavioral, social, emotional, and cognitive challenges he faced when he was younger.

Dr. Davidow likes to play volleyball and soccer; work out; eat the meatloaf at The Cheesecake Factory (a must have!); hang out with friends; and watch movies, Seinfeld, and The Big Bang Theory.


Hofstra HORIZONS

In 2012 Hofstra University awarded the inaugural Mentor of the Year Award. For the first time, Hofstra students and faculty were invited to nominate a full-time faculty member who had supervised advanced undergraduate research and guided students, in both professional and intellectual ways, toward developing their own ideas and pursuing their own research. This annual award acknowledges a faculty mentor who has had a significant impact on undergraduate research at the advanced level in his or her respective discipline.

Mary Ann Allison, Ph.D., assistant professor of journalism, media studies and public relations, was chosen by the Undergraduate Research Committee as the first recipient of the Mentor of the Year Award. Dr. Allison’s dedication to undergraduate research was recognized at the Latin Honors Recognition Convocation on May 20, 2012, where she was congratulated by President Stuart Rabinowitz, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Herman A. Berliner, and Associate Dean of Honors College and Undergraduate Research Coordinator Neil H. Donahue.

The Mentor of the Year Award serves to reaffirm Hofstra’s emphasis on advanced undergraduate research and dedicated faculty supervision as part of its longstanding commitment to teaching excellence.

Hofstra University is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Hofstra Horizons of Undergraduate Research. The magazine’s first issue (in fall 2013) will feature profiles on Dr. Lynn Turgeon, professor of economics at Hofstra (1957-1990), along with the 2012 and 2013 Mentors of the Year. Note: The 2013 Mentor of the Year will be announced in May 2013.

Mary Ann Allison2012 Hofstra University Mentor of the Year


Hofstra HORIZONS

Trustees of Hofstra UniversityAs of January 2013

OFFICERSJanis M. Meyer,* ChairJames E. Quinn,* Vice ChairPeter G. Schiff, Vice ChairDavid S. Mack,* SecretaryStuart Rabinowitz, President

MEMBERSAlan J. Bernon*Tejinder BindraRobert F. Dall*Helene FortunoffSteven J. Freiberg*Arno FriedMartin B. Greenberg*Joseph M. Gregory*Leo A. GuthartPeter S. Kalikow*Arthur J. KremerDiana Lake*Karen L. LutzJohn D. Miller*Marilyn B. Monter*Martha S. PopeEdwin C. ReedRobert D. Rosenthal*Debra A. Sandler*Thomas J. Sanzone*Joseph Sparacio*Frank G. Zarb*

DELEGATES

Stuart L. Bass,* Chair, University Senate Executive CommitteeTanya Levy-Odom,* President, Alumni OrganizationWilliam F. Nirode, Speaker of the FacultyRon Singh, President, Student Government AssociationAndrea Standrowicz, Vice President, Student Government AssociationElizabeth K. Venuti, Chair, University Senate Planning and Budget Committee

James M. Shuart,* President Emeritus

Wilbur Breslin, Trustee EmeritusEmil V. Cianciulli,* Chair EmeritusJohn J. Conefry, Jr., Chair EmeritusMaurice A. Deane,* Chair EmeritusGeorge G. Dempster,* Chair EmeritusJoseph L. Dionne,* Trustee EmeritusFlorence Kaufman, Trustee EmeritaWalter B. Kissinger, Trustee EmeritusAnn M. Mallouk,* Chair EmeritaThomas H. O’Brien, Trustee EmeritusArnold A. Saltzman, Trustee EmeritusNorman R. Tengstrom,* Trustee Emeritus

*Hofstra alumni

Hofstra at a Glance

LOCATIONHempstead, Long Island, 25 miles east of New York City.Telephone: 516-463-6600

CHARACTERA private, nonsectarian, coeducational university.

PRESIDENTStuart Rabinowitz, J.D.

COLLEGES AND SCHOOLSHofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Hofstra University Honors College; Frank G. Zarb School of Business; School of Communication; School of Education; School of Health Sciences and Human Services; School of Engineering and Applied Science; Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University; Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine at Hofstra University; School for University Studies; and Hofstra University Continuing Education.

FACULTYThere are 1,135 faculty members, of whom 517 are full-time. Ninety-three percent of full-time faculty hold the highest degree in their fields.

STUDENT BODYUndergraduate enrollment of 6,899. Total University enrollment, including graduate, School of Law and School of Medicine, is about 12,000. Male-female ratio is 47-to-53.

DEGREESBachelor’s degrees are offered in about 140 program options. Graduate degrees, including Ph.D., Ed.D., Psy.D., Au.D., J.D., and M.D., advanced certificates and professional diplomas, are offered in about 150 program options.

THE HOFSTRA CAMPUSWith 115 buildings and 240 acres, Hofstra is a member of the American Public Gardens Association.

LIBRARIESThe Hofstra libraries contain over 1 million volumes and provide 24/7 online access to more than 55,000 full-text journals and 70,000 electronic books.

ACCESSIBILITYHofstra is 100 percent program accessible to persons with disabilities.

JANUARY AND SUMMER SESSIONSHofstra offers a January session and three summer sessions between May and August.

44014:02/13

What Causes the Strange

North American Pattern of

Lyme Disease?

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDHofstra University

hofstra horizons - spring 2013

Documents

student academic

impressive work

research consortium

excellent scholarly

students local interests

academic success

academic probation

new semester