Seminars in Speech and Language最新文献

Supervision is a dynamic and challenging leadership process that remains an essential element within the field of speech-language pathology. This study examines a facet of the supervisory relationship and investigates whether supervision styles are similarly perceived by the supervisor and supervisee and if a mismatch in perceptions relates to satisfaction between supervisor-supervisee dyads. Data were collected through completion of a demographic questionnaire as well as the Supervisory Style Inventory, which categorizes supervisory style as being attractive, interpersonally sensitive, task-oriented, or mixed. Findings demonstrate notable variance in the self-reported supervisor style and the style supervisees perceived as being demonstrated with over half (66%) of supervisor-supervisee dyads reporting a perceived mismatch in style. There was not a significant difference in the level of supervisee satisfaction for supervisor dyads reporting a match in style compared with mismatch. Satisfaction was correlated with all three reported style characteristics; however, interpersonal and task-oriented supervisory style characteristics were more strongly correlated with supervisee satisfaction. Having a mixed style was the only style that was significantly correlated with supervisees reporting having their needs met. Discussions include practical implications, limitations of the study, as well as recommendations for future research.

The purpose of this article is to (1) define the diagnostic characteristics of ankyloglossia, (2) identify potential problems associated with ankyloglossia, and (3) discuss treatment options, when treatment is appropriate. This article is based on a review of the literature, including recent systematic reviews, and the author's experience as a cleft and orofacial specialist. Ankyloglossia is a common congenital condition characterized by an anterior attachment of the lingual frenulum on the tongue. This causes difficulty elevating and/or protruding the tongue tip. As such, ankyloglossia has been thought to affect neonatal feeding, speech, and other functions. Although systematic reviews have concluded that most infants with ankyloglossia can be fed normally, a small percentage of affected infants will show improved efficiency of feeding post-frenotomy. They also concluded that frenotomy may relieve nipple pain in the breastfeeding mothers of affected infants. Regarding speech, the systematic reviews concluded that there is no evidence that ankyloglossia causes speech disorders. This may be because simple compensations will result in normal acoustics of the sounds. Therefore, frenotomy should be recommended sparingly for newborn infants, and it should rarely, if ever, be recommended for speech disorders.

Most individuals with orofacial cleft require various healthcare services, including speech therapy. However, Filipino patients constantly face challenges in availing these services due to limitations in the healthcare system of the Philippines. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of patients with orofacial cleft on the factors that may serve as facilitators and barriers to speech intervention. A descriptive phenomenological approach to qualitative research was used to obtain an in-depth understanding of the perceptions of these patients. Semistructured interviews were conducted through online video conferences or mobile phone calls. Twenty-one participants were interviewed, most of who were mothers (90%) of children with orofacial cleft. Ten themes were derived from the transcripts. Five were categorized as facilitators, while the rest were considered as barriers. Generally, the respondents showed positive attitudes toward orofacial cleft, were aware of the communication and swallowing issues of the patients, and actively sought services to address these issues. Most barriers to speech intervention resulted from limited access to quality healthcare services and information. These findings highlight the importance of considering patient perspectives in clinical care. Maximizing facilitators and addressing barriers may improve access to universal healthcare among Filipinos with orofacial cleft.

This pilot study examined the impact of feedback type on learning a novel speech task, as measured by listener ratings, and will inform procedures for future investigations within a larger sample size. Twenty-four native monolingual English-speaking college-aged adults participated in a single training session to learn novel Hindi phrases. Participants were randomly placed into one of three feedback groups: knowledge of performance (KP), knowledge of results (KR), or a combined KP + KR condition. Participant performance was assessed at 1 day and 1 week post-training. Participant responses were audio recorded and judged for intelligibility, precision, and naturalness by native Hindi speakers, blind to the feedback conditions, via rating scales. At 2 days post-training, participants in the KP and KP + KR feedback conditions were rated as performing better than participants in the KR condition on all three perceptual measures. At 1 week post-training, participants in the KP feedback condition were judged to be superior across all three perceptual measures. Preliminary findings suggest that augmented feedback enhances learning, especially when skills are considered novel and learners are unable to rely on their own internal feedback. These results may have implications for the application of motor learning principles into clinical practice for persons with motor speech disorders.

Cognitive changes following adjuvant treatment for breast cancer (BC) are well documented following chemotherapy. However, limited studies have examined cognitive and/or language functions in chemotherapy-naive women with BC taking tamoxifen (TAM). Using ambulatory cognitive assessment, we investigated the trajectory of cognitive and language changes during early period of adjuvant endocrine treatment (TAM) in women with BC at two time periods (pretreatment and 2 months after treatment began). Four women with BC and 18 cognitively healthy age-matched controls completed three cognitive tasks using smartphones, during a short time period (5 days) and repeated them at two time periods. To determine language ability, language samples were collected at two time periods, where the participants described two stories from two wordless picture books and samples were assessed using core lexicon analyses. Wilcoxon-signed rank tests were computed to identify differences in linguistic and cognitive performances of both the groups at two time periods. No significant within-group or between-group differences were seen on the cognitive and language tasks at the two time periods; however, women with BC performed more poorly compared to the control group. We did see decline in some women with BC and not in others, in cognition and language during initial course of TAM treatment. However, the approach we used to assess these changes is valuable and innovative. This approach will help refine current research paradigms for determining cognitive and linguistic changes and will help determine if women with BC might require language intervention in the future.

Many social media sites are dedicated for speech-language pathologists (SLPs); however, the extent to which SLPs utilize them in clinical decision making and evidence-based practice (EBP) is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore SLPs' use of traditional and modern resources, including social media, within clinical decision making for assessment and intervention practices. Using a stratified random sampling approach, we invited school-based SLPs in Florida and Ohio and on pediatric-focused, SLP Facebook sites to complete an online survey. The majority (N = 271) reported using social media for professional purposes at least once per week: most frequently Facebook (19-25% of SLPs) or Pinterest (15-18% of SLPs) to learn about new treatment ideas or resources for (12-18%) or read others' summaries of treatment-related research (8-11%), but rarely to pose or answer a clinical question (3-5%). The number of reasons for one's professional social media use was moderately correlated with frequency of social media use, traditional EBP training, and reading a greater number of articles from ASHA and other sources. The results warrant further consideration of how to leverage social media as a tool to increase SLPs' knowledge and implementation of EBP.

Acoustic cues of voice gender influence not only how people perceive the speaker's gender (e.g., whether that person is a man, woman, or non-binary) but also how they perceive certain phonemes produced by that person. One such sociophonetic cue is the [s]/[ʃ] distinction in English; which phoneme is perceived depends on the perceived gender of the speaker. Recent research has shown that gender expansive people differ from cisgender people in their perception of voice gender and thus, this could be reflected in their categorization of sibilants. Despite this, there has been no research to date on how gender expansive people categorize sibilants. Furthermore, while voice gender expression is often discussed within a biological context (e.g., vocal folds), voice extends to those who use other communication methods. The current study fills this gap by explicitly recruiting people of all genders and asking them to perform a sibilant categorization task using synthetic voices. The results show that cisgender and gender expansive people perceive synthetic sibilants differently, especially from a "nonbinary" synthetic voice. These results have implications for developing more inclusive speech technology for gender expansive individuals, in particular for nonbinary people who use speech-generating devices.