Clinical application of usage-based phonology : treatment of cleft palate speech using usage-based electropalotography

Patrick, Kathryn and Fricke, Silke and Rutter, Ben and Cleland, Joanne (2024) Clinical application of usage-based phonology : treatment of cleft palate speech using usage-based electropalotography. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26 (4). pp. 595-610. ISSN 1754-9507 (https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2023.2238924)

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Abstract

Purpose: To investigate whether a novel electropalatography (EPG) therapy, underpinned by usage-based phonology theory, can improve the accuracy of target speech sounds for school-aged children and adults with persistent speech sound disorder (SSD) secondary to cleft palate +/− lip. Method: Six consecutively treated participants (7–27 years) with long-standing speech disorders associated with cleft palate enrolled in a multiple baseline (ABA) within-participant case series. The usage-based EPG therapy technique involved high-volume production of words. Speech was assessed on three baselines prior to therapy, during weekly therapy, at completion of therapy, and 3 months post-therapy. Percent correct of target phonemes in untreated words and continuously connected speech were assessed through acoustic phonetic transcription. Intra- and inter-transcriber agreement was determined. Result: Large to medium treatment effect sizes were shown for all participants following therapy (15–33 sessions). Percentage of targets correct for untreated words improved from near 0% pre-therapy, to near 100% for most target sounds post-therapy. Generalisation of target sounds to spontaneous connected speech occurred for all participants and ranged from 78.95−100% (M = 90.66; SD = 10.14) 3 months post-therapy. Conclusion: Clinically significant speech change occurred for all participants following therapy. Response to the novel therapeutic technique is encouraging and further research is indicated.

ORCID iDs

Patrick, Kathryn, Fricke, Silke, Rutter, Ben and Cleland, Joanne ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0660-1646;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)