A survey of speech and language therapists’ views on electropalatography therapy outcomes in Scotland

Abstract

Questionnaires elicited information from speech and language therapists (SLTs) working in Scotland about individuals they had treated with Electropalatography (EPG) between 1993 and 2003.The results showed that the majority of the group (n ϭ 60) who had received EPG therapy during this period were school-age children with either functional articulation disorders or cleft palate. The sounds most frequently targeted in EPG therapy were /s/, /s/, /t/ and /d/. The (SLTs) judged that the majority of the group had improved their articulation to some extent and almost all had increased awareness of their own articulation difficulties following EPG therapy. Despite these gains, most experienced difficulties generalizing new patterns into everyday speaking situations. The results suggest that when using EPG, SLTs need to adopt specific strategies to promote generalization and maintenance.

Ultrasound as visual feedback in speech habilitation: Exploring consultative use in rural British Columbia, Canada

“…SA1 and SA3 also showed improvement in tongue grooving for sibilant production to single word level production. Gibbon and Paterson (2006) suggested that the benefit of visual feedback (EPG) appears to be in establishing phones, a comment also made by one of the SLPs for the current study. The SLP's traditional treatment methods remain necessary to help incorporate the new phone into words, sentences and conversation.…”

“…In the UK, for regions where access to technology is generally non-existent, a consultative model of service delivery was successfully initiated with EPG for speakers with cleft palate (Gibbon et al, 1998). In a subsequent paper, Gibbon and Paterson (2006) suggested that the major benefit of visual feedback (in their case, EPG) might be in the early stages of treatment, as a support for establishing new phones. Those two papers from the UK led to the objective for the current study: to investigate potential effects of a short-term consultative approach using ultrasound as visual feedback on speech production in rural communities in British Columbia, Canada, for children with speech impairment.…”

Electropalatographic therapy for children and young people with Down's syndrome

“…After eliminating the processes which did not primarily involve placement of lingua-palatal consonants, only six error types remained: gliding, velar fronting, post-alveolar fronting, affrication, backing, and lateralization. Four of the participants exhibited gliding, (participants 3, 4, 5, and 6), but this process was not treated as it is not normally targeted in EPG therapy (Gibbon and Paterson, 2006). The process with the highest number of errors, excluding gliding, was treated first in therapy.…”

Tongue reading: Comparing the interpretation of visual information from inside the mouth, from electropalatographic and ultrasound displays of speech sounds

“…Overall, consonants were easier to tongue-read than vowels, supporting the view of Speech and Language Therapists that EPG is most useful for remediation of consonant errors (Gibbon and Paterson, 2006). It was surprising that participants performed at chance level in the ultrasound vowel condition since previous research has highlighted the value of this visual feedback tool in treatment of vowels due to the anatomically correct visualisation of the configuration and position of the tongue (Bernhardt et al, 2005).…”