Stuttering is one of the more vexing communication challenges that speech-language pathologists address. This is in part due to the fact that there is a certain cohort of children who appear to spontaneously “recover” from stuttering while others continue to stutter throughout their adult lives. (Note: I put the word recover in quotes because there are… (read more)
The Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research just published some very interesting research into the use of speech-recognition technology to assess a child’s vocal development. In an article titled Automated Assessment of Child Vocalization Development Using LENA, the authors explain that they set out to use an automated speech recognition (ASR) system to predict a child’s level… (read more)
A new study just out from Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups compared nine school-age students with speech sound disorders receiving traditional once weekly intervention to nine similar students receiving individual six-minute telepractice sessions five times weekly. Although the monthlyminutes were equivalent (30 minutes per week for 4 weeks vs. 6 minutes per day for 4… (read more)
One of the biggest challenges facing the wide-spread adoption of online speech therapy (or telepractice, as it’s called in the biz) in the United States is the lack of reimbursement by Medicaid and private insurers.We’re consistently re-assured that “it’s coming,” but it’s an area of tremendous and ongoing frustration for those of us engaged in this… (read more)
A group of researchers in the UK have published a study in The Lancet that indicates significant long-term benefits of parent led social communication intervention for young children with autism. What do these findings mean? Well, a couple of things. First, it is as-good-as-it-gets evidence that intensive, parent-involved early intervention around social communication skills has benefits that… (read more)
A new study published in the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders found that telepractice (the delivery of speech-language therapy via teleconference) was an effective means for delivering treatment to children with childhood apraxia of speech. Using the Rapid Syllable Transitions (ReST) method, the authors provided speech therapy to 5 children with CAS, 4 times… (read more)