International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology最新文献

Purpose: This survey-based study explored public awareness of the speech-language pathology profession in Aotearoa New Zealand. The study also aimed to understand participants' knowledge and experiences of individuals with speech, language, and communication impairments.

Method: An online survey was designed and distributed via the Qualtrics survey platform. The survey included three sections, which focused on participant demographics, awareness about speech-language pathology, and knowledge and experiences of communication impairments.

Result: The responses from 800 fully completed surveys were analysed. A majority of participants indicated that they had never heard or read anything about speech-language pathology and had never met a speech-language pathologist. The participants' responses reflected low or moderate levels of understanding about the roles of speech-language pathologists and their scope of practice.

Conclusion: Findings indicated low levels of awareness among the general public about speech-language pathology and individuals with communication impairments. These findings were consistent with similar international research conducted over the past 4 decades. Further research is needed to support the development of initiatives designed to increase awareness of the speech-language pathology profession and the needs of individuals with communication impairments.

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the views of professionals working with children with developmental communication disability (e.g. associated with developmental disability, autism, developmental language disorder) on the features underlying effective augmented reality (AR) applications for language learning and education; and design, build, and evaluate a prototype AR application (InterPlay) to support language learning for children with developmental communication disability.

Method: A three-stage design methodology was used to (a) identify opportunities for AR to support children with developmental communication disability; (b) create a prototype application to provide an identified support; and (c) evaluate the features of AR that may afford the best support, using the InterPlay prototype as a foundation for discussion.

Result: Expert reference focus groups identified support opportunities and key design considerations, informing development of a prototype AR application, InterPlay. Evaluation identified a further four key themes: (a) designing an accessible reality, (b) integrating physical and virtual realities, (c) barriers to access and usability, and (d) contrasting new and existing technology.

Conclusion: Findings highlighted the need for careful consideration in the design and implementation stages of AR development to ensure AR applications are accessible and beneficial for children with developmental communication disability.

Purpose: Adults with acquired communication disorders are particularly vulnerable to potential negative effects from the changes that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this longitudinal study, we asked: How did the self-perceived impacts of the pandemic on adults with acquired communication disorders change over time?

Method: We developed an online survey to investigate changes in day-to-day behaviours, psychosocial elements, and communication abilities among members of a community-based stroke recovery centre in the USA. Participants included adults with aphasia or other cognitive-communication disorder from stroke or brain injury. We compared survey responses from summer 2020 (n = 50) and summer 2021 (n = 24) using a concurrent mixed methods design.

Result: The impacts of the pandemic changed over time. By 2021, participants reported a more "normal" amount of time spent on in-person socialising and healthcare, improved quality of life and connectedness to others, and an improvement in overall communication ability. Across both years, participants shared comments regarding changes in routine, increased use of technology, and the positive benefit of therapy groups.

Conclusion: Self-perceived psychosocial elements and communication abilities among stroke and other brain injury survivors changed over the course of the pandemic. Clinicians and researchers should continue providing this population with support and opportunities for engagement.

Purpose: Reflection can be a valuable learning strategy for connecting theory with practice and illuminating insights and understandings from complex or messy experiences. This learning is critical for educators and health professionals who work or teach students in complex contexts. In anticipation of their future needs, speech-language pathology students, like many health profession students in Australia, are expected to demonstrate the ability to reflect on their practice as part of their professional practice or clinical education. It is challenging to support educators to facilitate reflection and students to learn when, why, and how to reflect for personally and professionally meaningful outcomes given the diversity in understandings and capabilities present in the literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of an evidence-based reflection intervention to clarify and support student reflective practice.

Method: A convergent mixed methods design captured quantitative and qualitative results from 16 participants for a better understanding of the feasibility of a reflection intervention.

Result: The diversity in the reflection literature also appears to be present in students' reflection approaches. This diversity can encourage student engagement and ownership of reflecting when considered within a rich learning environment.

Conclusion: Findings are discussed for timely, intellectually and emotionally safe reflection interventions that develop students' reflective inquiry in the real-world.

Purpose: Although discourse assessment is recommended, few tools exist for adolescent acquired brain injury (ABI) and few theories describe the contribution of cognition to discourse impairment. This study explored whether a novel discourse protocol can identify difficulties following ABI and whether a discourse processing model provides a useful account of impairment.

Method: Using a case-control design, two adolescent males with moderate ABI (12 and 14 years) were compared to a neurotypical sample on a range of language and cognitive assessments. Patterns in performance were interpreted using a theoretical model. Participants completed a standardised omnibus language assessment, discourse assessment, and battery of cognitive tasks.

Result: Analyses revealed significant differences in discourse and cognition between adolescents with and without ABI. No impairment was detected on a standardised language assessment. Patterns in discourse and cognition aligned with a contemporary model of discourse processing.

Conclusion: Participants with ABI demonstrated discourse deficits relative to the neurotypical reference sample. The findings demonstrate the value of discourse sampling across multiple genres and analysis of microlinguistic to superstructural features. A structure-building framework (SBF) model, originating in schizophrenia, provides a promising theory with which to interpret discourse impairment and has the potential to inform intervention for discourse in ABI.

Purpose: Ethiopia is the second most populous country in sub-Saharan Africa. While Ethiopia's health care system includes primary health centres, general, and specialised hospitals, allied health care like speech-language pathology was not available until 2003. This article was written with the aim of sharing the experience of establishing speech-language pathology as a profession and the first speech-language pathology training program in Ethiopia.

Method: In this paper, we retrospectively examine how the leadership of local stakeholders, a multidisciplinary team, and the development of a professional infrastructure led to the success of the program. The authorship group, who were involved in the program from inception to implementation, share their experiences.

Result: The speech-language pathology undergraduate program at Addis Ababa University graduated its first class in 2019. Plans to grow the training program at the graduate level are ongoing.

Conclusion: This novel program, grown from several international partnerships, is an example of how low- and middle-income countries can improve access to the service providers necessary to treat their populations.

Purpose: The present study examines cross-sectional trends in performance on a quasi-universal non-word repetition (NWR) task. It also considers whether NWR performance is dependent on levels of exposure to a language and compares the performance of bilingual children across their two languages.

Method: A cross-sectional design was employed. The English and French quasi-universal NWR tasks, featuring stimuli from two to five syllables in length, was administered to Canadian school-aged monolinguals and two groups of bilinguals: those who encountered their second language in early childhood and those who encountered their second language at school entry.

Result: When evaluated in English, the early-exposure bilinguals produced significantly fewer errors than the school-entry exposure bilinguals and the English monolingual groups. When evaluated in French, the early-exposure bilinguals and the French monolinguals produced significantly fewer errors than the school-entry exposure bilinguals. Compared across languages, the French monolinguals produced fewer errors on the French version of the NWR task than the English monolinguals did on the English version of the same task. In both languages and across all analyses, the youngest age group (7-8 years) produced more errors than the two older groups (9-10 years and 11-12 years).

Conclusion: The quasi-universal NWR task showed sensitivity to improvements from 7 to 11 years of age in English and up to 9 years of age in French. Better performance in French may be due to the relatively greater frequency of multisyllabic words in that language. The development and use of this particular NWR task with monolinguals and bilinguals-in both of their languages-contribute to a deeper understanding of quasi-universal NWR performance in typically developing children.

Purpose: We investigated the association between the time to first post-extubation oral intake, barriers to oral intake, and the rate of activities of daily living (ADL) independence at discharge (Barthel Index score <70).

Method: Consecutive patients admitted to the intensive care unit, aged ≥18 years, and mechanically ventilated for ≥48 hr were retrospectively enrolled. The time to first oral intake, barriers to oral intake, daily changes, and clinical outcomes were assessed. Multiple logistic regression analysis adjusted for baseline characteristics was used to determine the association between time to first post-extubation oral intake and ADL independence.

Result: Among the 136 patients, 74 were assigned to the ADL independence group and 62 to the dependence group. The time to first post-extubation oral intake was significantly associated with ADL independence (adjusted p = < 0.001) and was a predictor of ADL independence at discharge. Respiratory and dysphagia-related factors (odds ratio [OR] 0.35; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.15-0.82, p = 0.015 and OR 0.07; CI 0.01-0.68, p = 0.021, respectively) were significantly associated with the ADL independence at discharge.

Conclusion: Respiratory and dysphagia-related factors, as barriers to the initiation of oral intake after extubation, were significantly associated with ADL independence at discharge.

Purpose: To investigate whether a novel electropalatography (EPG) therapy, underpinned by usage-based phonology theory, can improve the accuracy of target speech sounds for school-aged children and adults with persistent speech sound disorder (SSD) secondary to cleft palate +/- lip.

Method: Six consecutively treated participants (7-27 years) with long-standing speech disorders associated with cleft palate enrolled in a multiple baseline (ABA) within-participant case series. The usage-based EPG therapy technique involved high-volume production of words. Speech was assessed on three baselines prior to therapy, during weekly therapy, at completion of therapy, and 3 months post-therapy. Percent correct of target phonemes in untreated words and continuously connected speech were assessed through acoustic phonetic transcription. Intra- and inter-transcriber agreement was determined.

Result: Large to medium treatment effect sizes were shown for all participants following therapy (15-33 sessions). Percentage of targets correct for untreated words improved from near 0% pre-therapy, to near 100% for most target sounds post-therapy. Generalisation of target sounds to spontaneous connected speech occurred for all participants and ranged from 78.95-100% (M = 90.66; SD = 10.14) 3 months post-therapy.

Conclusion: Clinically significant speech change occurred for all participants following therapy. Response to the novel therapeutic technique is encouraging and further research is indicated.

Purpose: Surgical voice restoration (SVR) is associated with improved patient quality of life following laryngectomy. This study aims to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with SVR and analyse the complications in this cohort of patients.

Method: A retrospective review of all patients with SVR at a single tertiary ear, nose, and throat (ENT) unit in the UK for 12 months during the COVID-19 pandemic, with comparison to the preceding 12 months. A survey was also administered to assess patients' experiences during the pandemic.

Result: Thirty-six patients were included in this study. During the pandemic period, 19.5% (n = 7) patients had significant complications, with five patients needing surgery to restore speech. In the 12 months pre-pandemic, 13.5% (n = 5) had significant complications, although none required surgery to restore speech. Six patients (19.4%) felt these complications were avoidable in normal circumstances. Further, 30.5% (n = 11) of patients reported a delay in seeking medical attention due to concerns about their vulnerability to COVID-19.

Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on many patients with SVR. This has resulted in a large proportion of patients experiencing delayed care, a loss of voice, a need for further surgical intervention, and negative impacts on their quality of life.