The effect of tele-speech therapy on treatment of stuttering

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of tele-speech therapy on the recovery of patients with a stutter.

Methods

This research was an interventional study conducted on the patients visiting two rehabilitation centres. In this study, patients with a stutter participated in the tele-speech therapy sessions via Skype. Stuttering Severity Instrument-Fourth Edition was used to determine the severity of stutter before and after the intervention.

Results

The results showed a significant difference in the mean scores of stuttering severity before and after tele-speech therapy (p = 0.001). Our findings showed a mean reduction of 13.8% in stuttering scores. More than half of the patients (56.6%) reported a “high” and “very high” satisfaction with this treatment method.

Conclusions

Tele-speech therapy is an effective way for the treatment of stuttering patients irrespective of their age, gender, and educational background. This method can improve patient’s speech and reduce stuttering.

Implications for Rehabilitation

• Tele-rehabilitation is an effective way to treat stuttering.

• Tele-speech therapy can be implemented for any group of stuttering patients.

• Participants were satisfied with the tele-rehabilitation intervention.

• Tele-speech therapy accelerates the treatment process.

• Tele-speech therapy eliminates patient travels to speech therapies.

Keywords:

• Stuttering
• speech therapy
• skype
• tele-rehabilitation
• videoconferencing

Acknowledgment

The authors thank the authorities and speech therapists in the rehabilitation centres who sincerely cooperated in this research.

Ethical approval

To observe the ethical considerations, the Research Ethics’ Committee of Kerman University of Medical Sciences approved the study (Ethical code: IR.KMU.REC.1396.1085).

Informed consent

The researcher asked the participants to complete the written informed consent forms. Moreover, they were also ensured about the confidentiality of their personal information. For patients younger than 16 year old, parents or legal guardians gave their consents. The study objective was explained to this group of patients in presence of their parents and when both patients and parents were agreed on the participation in the study, the form was signed by the parents.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study resulted from research project No. 96.10.60.532 funded by Kerman University of Medical Sciences.