Date of Award

8-1-1976

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Communication Sciences & Disorders

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between advanced and beginning student clinicians in the observed frequency of each of eleven selected nonverbal behaviors. A beginning clinician was defined as a student enrolled in clinical practicum with not less than five clock hours of clinical case contact experience and not more than tx^elve hours of clinical case contact at the onset of this study. An advanced clinician was defined as a student enrolled in clinical practicum with not less than twenty-five hours of clinical case contact experience and not more than fifty hours of clinical case contact experience at the onset of this study. The advanced group was composed of ten clinicians and the beginning group was composed of nine clinicians- for a total of nineteen subjects.

Each subject was videotaped on three different occasions of regularly scheduled therapy. The experimenter then viewed the five- minute samples and counted the occurrence of each of the eleven nonverbal behaviors under investigation. The nonverbal behaviors counted were: smile, frown, positive head nod, negative head nod, gesture, self-manipulation, positive touch, negative touch, posture change, eye contact and forward lean.

The mean scores for each behavior were calculated. Advanced clinicians used more of the nonverbal behaviors which serve as social reinforcers than did beginning clinicians. Those behaviors were smile, positive head nod, gesture, positive touch, eye contact and forward lean. The beginning clinicians used more frowns, self-manipulations, negative touchs, negative head nods and posture changes which are negatively connotated behaviors. Data were analyzed using analysis of variance procedures. The results revealed that the differences xjere not significant at the .05 level in the use of all nonverbal behaviors between the two groups.

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