Speech rehabilitation in 10 Spanish-speaking children with severe cerebral palsy: a 4-year longitudinal study.

Abstract

A 4-year longitudinal intervention was conducted with 10 young severely dysarthric children with cerebral palsy. Two procedures were implemented, each one for a period of 2 years. The first procedure centred on training the oral praxies, whereas the second one favoured a more functional approach based on voice and prosody training as well as parents' and school teachers' involvement. Bobath neurodevelopmental treatment was given throughout the 4-year period. Results clearly favour the second type of procedure which in interaction with Bobath's technique proved able to bring the children from unintelligible to an acceptable level of functional speech.