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Biomedical subjects

S Sprague

Publications and source records attributed to S Sprague.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

An ergonomic education and evaluation program for apprentice carpenters.

Eighteen new apprentice carpenters received sixteen hours of ergonomics awareness education as a part of their regular apprenticeship training during 1994 and 1995. An equal number of apprentices received no training but served as controls. The training took place in the Southwest Ohio District Council of Carpenter's Joint Apprenticeship and Training School. The curriculum was designed to be "learner-centered." Instruction included short lectures presented by a journeyman carpenter and emphasized participatory activities in the school's carpentry shop. Ongoing program evaluation assessed trainees' reactions to the content and structure of the curriculum and its influence on their behavior. Trainees and controls completed brief quizzes on ergonomic knowledge. Hands-on exercises enabled trainees to apply recently acquired ergonomic knowledge in the school's carpentry shop. Trainees scored significantly higher on one-half of the post-session quizzes and the comprehensive test. Trainees preferred participatory teaching methods, especially those using redesigned tools (93%) and evaluating ergonomic risks (86%); and they supported continued safety and health education during apprentice training. The authors conclude that apprentice-ship programs should provide regular "learner-centered" occupational safety and health education that includes ergonomics, and these programs should be integrated with their shop-based manual arts instruction.

Ergonomics↗
PubMed1991

Speech production performance in children with multichannel cochlear implants.

The purpose of this study is to report on five speech production protocols collected as part of the Food and Drug Administration's Clinical Trials for the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant. Sixty-one children, ranging in age from 2.4 years to 17.8 years, participated. Speech measures included nonsegmental and segmental portions of the Phonetic Level Speech Evaluation, the Phonologic Level Speech Evaluation, speech intelligibility, and an experimental condition examining speech produced with the device turned on versus off. Seventy-seven percent of the children improved on at least one-third of the speech production measures. Significant improvements in the ability to imitate prosodic characteristics were observed for 31.1 percent of the children. Improvements in the ability to imitate speech sounds were found for 66.7 percent of the children. Examination of phonologic skills acquired during spontaneous speaking improved for 55.6 percent of the children. Speech intelligibility improved in 62.9 percent of the children after implantation. More centralized second formant frequencies were observed in vowels produced with the speech processor turned off, as opposed to on, in all 13 of the children tested on this protocol. Data from this study suggest a multichannel cochlear implant may assist many children in developing better speech.

Adolescent↗