| Abstract: |
Background: Individuals with developmental dysarthria typically demonstrate reduced functioning of one or more of the speech subsystems, which negatively impacts speech intelligibility and communication within social contexts. A few treatment approaches are available for improving speech production and intelligibility among individuals with developmental dysarthria. However, these approaches have only limited application and research findings among adolescents and young adults. Aims: To determine and compare the effectiveness of two treatment approaches, the "modified" Speech Intelligibility Treatment ("m"SIT) and the Beatalk technique, on speech production and intelligibility among Hebrew-speaking adolescents and young adults with developmental dysarthria. Methods & Procedures: Two matched groups of adolescents and young adults with developmental dysarthria participated in the study. Each received one of the two treatments, "m"SIT or Beatalk, over the course of 9 weeks. Measures of speech intelligibility, articulatory accuracy, voice and vowel acoustics were assessed both pre- and post-treatment. Outcomes & Results: Both the "m"SIT and Beatalk groups demonstrated gains in at least some of the outcome measures. Participants in the "m"SIT group exhibited improvement in speech intelligibility and voice measures, while participants in the Beatalk group demonstrated increased articulatory accuracy and gains in voice measures from pre- to post-treatment. Significant increases were noted post-treatment for first formant values for select vowels. Conclusions & Implications: Results of this preliminary study are promising for both treatment approaches. The differentiated results indicate their distinct application to speech intelligibility deficits. The current findings also hold clinical significance for treatment among adolescents and young adults with motor speech disorders and application for a language other than English. |
