Feasibility of using ultrasound visual biofeedback to treat persistent speech sound disorders in children with cleft palate- a case series

ABSTRACT

The current study aimed to assess the effectiveness of incorporating ultrasound visual biofeedback (UVB) into a treatment programme addressing persistent speech sound disorders linked to cleft palate in children who have been unresponsive to traditional therapy approaches. Materials and Methods. A single-subject multiple baseline experiment was conducted with five children aged 6:5–13:5 over a period of 16 therapy sessions. Treatment focused on providing cues from real-time ultrasound images to assist children in modifying their tongue movements. Probe data were collected before, mid, and post-treatment to assess target consonant accuracy for 50 untreated words. The results of the statistical analysis suggested participants showed a significant increase in percent target consonant accuracy as a result of intervention using UVB. Although most of the participants exhibited progress in generalising learned phonemes to untreated words, some did not show improvement in gaining generalisation from treated phonemic contexts to those untreated ones. When traditional methods fail to yield significant progress, incorporating ultrasound biofeedback into the treatment programme emerges as a viable option to enhance sound accuracy in children with persistent speech sound disorders resulting from cleft palate.

KEYWORDS:

• Cleft palate
• visual biofeedback
• persistent speech sound disorders
• intervention
• children

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the children and their parents who attended twice-a-week treatment sessions and the follow-up sessions from the far. We would also thank the Maxillofacial team coordinator, Mar Sue Chagnon, and the SLPs involved in identifying and referring the children. The authors would also like to acknowledge the support and contributions of Dr. Alen Wrench in Articulate Instruments. Ltd for his technical support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data is available on request from the authors.

Ethical approval

Approval was obtained from Eastern Washington University Institutional Review Board (IRB# HS 5888) as the evaluations and treatment sessions were conducted in the University Speech and Hearing Clinic. Informed consent was obtained from parents and children over 11 years old; younger children gave assent prior to any recording.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Health Sciences & Services Authority (HSSA) of Spokane County under grant Innovative Health Care & Translative Research Grant [#LC-P20-002] for this study. The funder played no role in the design or conduct of this study nor the writing of this paper.