Long-term outcomes of speech therapy for seven adolescents with visual feedback technologies: Ultrasound and electropalatography

Abstract

This follow-up study investigated the speech production of seven adolescents and young adults with hearing impairment 2–4 years after speech intervention with ultrasound and electropalatography. Perceptual judgments by seven expert listeners revealed that five out of seven speakers either continued to generalize post-treatment or maintained their level of performance post-treatment. Targets included fricatives, vowels and the rhotic /ɹ/. Speakers ranged in age from 14 to 19 years. Listeners were considered to be expert listeners. All listeners had extensive backgrounds in phonetics and phonology and were speech-language pathologists. This long-term investigation revealed that speech habilitation with visual feedback tools as adjuncts to therapy appeared to have lasting effects. The implications for habilitation include reduced therapy times and outcomes not previously possible.

• long-term follow-up
• speech habilitation
• electropalatography
• ultrasound
• speech of speakers with hearing loss
• cochlear implants
• listener study
• adolescents

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the following without whom this study would not have been possible: the speakers and listeners; research assistant Allan Shoolingin, RSLP; Donald Derrick, ABD, Linguistics for software development and contributions to software design; Dr. Bruno Zumbo (EPSE at UBC) for his statistical advice; and Dr. Bryan Gick for his advice and feedback.

Declaration of interest: For funding, we thank the Ministry of Children and Family Development (through the Human Early Learning Partnership, HELP).

Notes

1. Consultation with statistician Dr. Bruno Zumbo revealed that there was no straightforward way to a statistical test of the data.