Purpose: This study investigated the feasibility and clinical relevance of a low-cost, wearable biofeedback system designed to monitor physiological signals related to respiration and phonation in real time.Methods: In this study, a wearable biofeedback system consisting of a thermocouple sensor and a flex sensor was designed and developed, along with a real-time feedback interface. To evaluate the system’s effectiveness, sensor data were collected from ten healthy adult participants during the performance of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises (SOVTE). The synchrony and consistency between phonation onset and abdominal motion were measured, along with the exhaled air volume and abdominal wall movement in response to variations in straw width and depth. Additionally, the effect of the water level and straw shape on the system’s performance was analyzed, with temperature changes detected by the thermocouple sensor used to predict variations in exhaled air volume. The analysis also included an evaluation of user satisfaction.Results: During phonatory tasks, the thermocouple consistently detected temperature increases ranging from 1.8°C to 5.2°C, validating its sensitivity to expiratory airflow. Larger-diameter straws (10 mm) were associated with greater temperature elevations than narrower ones (8 mm), suggesting a direct correlation with airflow resistance in water. Simultaneously, the flexible pressure sensors demonstrated stable, repeatable waveform patterns aligned with inhalation and exhalation cycles, allowing precise tracking of thoracoabdominal expansion. Real-time data visualization enabled intuitive feedback for users to self-monitor respiratory and phonatory dynamics during vocal exercises.Conclusions: These findings support the potential utility of thermocouple and flex sensors as accessible, real-time monitoring tools for individualized voice training and therapeutic intervention.
Purpose: Previous studies that have examined concordance of stuttering among monozygotic and dizygotic twins indicate both genetic and environmental influences. However, specific environmental influences that may be associated with the presence of stuttering are unresolved. The purpose of this study was to investigate one possible environmental influence – the relationship between household characteristics and stuttering occurrence, using population data.Methods: Data were used from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). The FFCWS interviewed parents of children at birth and again in intervals throughout childhood. This study utilized parent reported data, taken when their children were roughly 9 years old. To compare environmental confusion among households, results of the Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale (CHAOS) were compared between children who stutter (CWS) and children who do not stutter (CWNS).Results: The current sample included 106 CWS and 3,239 CWNS, where parental report was suggestive of more CWS living in chaotic environments. Specifically, CWS scored an average of 4.056 (CI = 3.978, 4.090) points higher on the CHAOS scale than CWNS.Conclusions: Current findings suggest that some CWS live in home environments that experience increased congestion, noise, confusion, and lessened stability. These results may indirectly provide justification for indirect approaches to treatment for CWS. This paper offers rationale for such approaches and offers potential clinical benefits that may come from combining direct and indirect approaches to treatment for CWS.
Purpose: A systematic and detailed practicum operation framework is essential to enhance the quality of clinical practicum in institutions training SLP and providing professional rehabilitation services for individuals with communication disorders. This study aimed to analyze the current status of clinical practicums at speech-language pathology education institutions in Korea and to develop an appropriate practicum model.Methods: This study was conducted in a stepwise manner to develop standardized guidelines and criteria for on-campus clinical practicum operations. The preparation phase began in March 2022, followed by the development of survey items on practicum status from September 2023 to January 2024. A comprehensive on-site evaluation of clinical practicum operations was carried out from February to March 2024, and finally, the development of practicum standards and operational guidelines was undertaken from April 2024 to January 2025.Results: A total of 33 speech-language pathology education institutions were analyzed, excluding 4 programs out of the total 37 institutions revealed that all had on-campus practicum facilities. These facilities were systematically organized, with designated spaces per trainee, treatment room setups, monitoring systems, and additional facility space. Notably, individual treatment rooms were a primary component, and the adoption rate of observation rooms and real-time monitoring systems was also relatively high. Based on these findings, an integrated practicum model was proposed encompassing physical space, environmental setup, system operations, and documentation management, presenting a clinical practicum model suitable for the educational context in Korea.Conclusions: This clinical practicum model aimed to improve the quality of on-campus practicum experiences, strengthen the systematization and professionalism of practicum operations, and ultimately contribute to the systematic enhancement of clinical competencies and professional capabilities of speech-language pathologists in Korea.
Purpose: This study investigates how native language interference, based on the countries of origin (China and Vietnam) of marriage migrant women, impacts the articulation and phonological variations in their children’s speech development. The ultimate goal is to proactively intervene and reduce articulation-related difficulties during the children’s critical speech development period.Methods: The participants were 29 elementary school children from multicultural families in South Korea, aged from 6 years 11 months to 12 years 11 months. The children consisted of 14 with Chinese backgrounds and 15 with Vietnamese backgrounds, all demonstrating receptive language skills within or above -1 standard deviation. Assessments were conducted individually by the researcher in quiet, isolated environments.Results: First, no statistically significant differences were found in correct articulation counts between the two groups. Both groups frequently exhibited errors in phonation types, highlighting significant difficulties, as well as omissions of final consonants. Second, common phonological variations observed included deaspiration, lenition, fortition, fronting (palatal, alveolar, velar), alveolarization, plosivization, bilabialization, omission of plosives, and nasalization, with no significant differences between groups.Conclusions: The observed articulation and phonological errors, especially frequent phonation type errors and final consonant omissions, reflect linguistic constraints inherent in Chinese and Vietnamese languages. Chinese lacks tense consonants within its phonetic structure, while Vietnamese struggles with precise differentiation despite phonetic similarities. These findings emphasize the necessity for proactive, targeted intervention strategies to effectively mitigate native language interference impacts in children from multicultural families.
Purpose: Extensive literature exists about the effects of LSVT LOUD®, SPEAK OUT!®, and SPEAK OUT!® Therapy Group programs on voice and speech outcomes for individuals living with Parkinson Disease (PD). Prior studies have reported increased speech intelligibility and vocal intensity among participants with PD immediately upon completing one-on-one individual programs (including LSVT LOUD® and SPEAK OUT!® therapy). However, few researchers have reported longitudinal data on the specific effects of the SPEAK OUT!® Therapy Group program on participants’ cognitive, self-reported swallowing, depression, and voice-related quality of life (QoL) status. Therefore, the current study examined the effects of SPEAK OUT!® Therapy Group participation for fourteen participants with PD in multiple domains, including cognition, self-reported swallowing status, depression, and voice-related QoL across two years.Methods: Data were collected at six-month intervals over two years. Participants included a treatment (TX) group that attended weekly SPEAK OUT!® Therapy Group sessions and a control (CN) group that did not receive any speech therapy services for their PD symptoms.Results: No statistically significant group differences were found for the different measures. However, descriptive statistics showed maintenance, rather than decline, in the TX group for cognition and other domains compared to the CN group at the end of two years. In contrast, the CN group demonstrated a slight cognitive decline during the same period.Conclusions: The current study provides evidence of possible slow progression of non-voice domains such as cognition, self-reported swallowing, and depression after participating in the SPEAK OUT!® Therapy Group program. However, additional studies are warranted.
Purpose: In South Korea, the government recently introduced the School Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) Pilot Program to incorporate speech therapy services within elementary schools, with the objective of improving accessibility for students. Despite the implementation of this initiative, there remains limited research regarding its actual impact, particularly concerning caregivers’ satisfaction. This study aims to evaluate caregivers’ satisfaction with school-based speech therapy services, focusing on various aspects of the program.Methods: This study was conducted over six months at two elementary schools in Gwangju, involving 22 students (11 boys and 11 girls) aged 7 to 12. A total of 22 caregivers (3 fathers, 16 mothers, 3 grandparents) participated in a satisfaction survey upon program completion. The survey comprised 30 items, divided into five domains: overall satisfaction, satisfaction with evaluation, satisfaction with the therapy environment, satisfaction with the SLP, and perceived effectiveness of the therapy. Responses were measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to assess internal consistency, while Pearson correlations and ANOVA were used for further data analysis.Results: The survey demonstrated high internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha values ranging from 0.85 to 0.91. Caregiver satisfaction was high across all domains, with overall satisfaction (M = 4.75) and evaluation (M = 4.73) receiving the highest ratings. Perceived effectiveness was rated lower (M = 4.47). Correlation analysis showed strong positive associations between overall satisfaction and perceived effectiveness (r = 0.878, p < 0.001), and moderate correlations with therapy environment (r = 0.548) and SLP satisfaction (r = 0.540). No significant differences were found by gender or grade level, except for the therapy environment, where caregivers of older students and girls reported higher satisfaction.Conclusions: The school-based SLP program was effective in improving children’s speech and language skills, with caregivers expressing high satisfaction. Key factors influencing satisfaction included therapy effectiveness, evaluation, and environment. While no significant differences were observed based on gender or grade, suggestions for program enhancement included increasing therapy frequency and session duration. These findings provide insights for improving school-based speech therapy services and supporting children’s speech and language development.
Purpose: Children with borderline intelligence have difficulty with phonological awareness and decoding. This study aims to examine the spelling abilities of borderline and typical children and determine their difference in spelling abilities after an intervention with a phonological knowledge-based spelling program.Methods: The study subjects were four borderline-intelligent children and four normal-intelligent children in the third and fourth grades of elementary school whose teachers or parents reported having no sensory impairment, had an error variance of -1 SD or less on a phonological knowledge-based listening and writing test, and had normal reading achievement and reading cognitive processing skills according to RA-RCP.Results: This study showed that improving spelling knowledge through phonological knowledge-based writing intervention is possible. In particular, the phonological fluctuation score and spelling error rate of borderline intellectual children decreased significantly after the intervention, proving the effectiveness of the intervention. The phonological knowledge-based writing intervention had a positive effect on both borderline and typical children, but the gap between borderline and typical children was not completely closed. Intelligence and vocabulary significantly impacted the development of phonological knowledge, while age had no significant correlation.Conclusions: In terms of phonological manipulation skills, typically developing children performed well on phonological manipulation tasks. With delayed responses, children with borderline intelligence showed limited performance on these tasks. When it came to understanding phonological rules, typically developing children consistently processed rule-based spelling and pronunciation, while borderline children were limited to simple rule application and had difficulty handling complex variation.
Purpose: Occupational vocal demands have been identified to exacerbate vocal issues. Vocal warm-up exercises are strongly believed to help in the prevention of vocal fold damage in professional voice users. The study intended to recognize the perceptions and practices of vocal warm-up exercises among school teachers.Methods: A cross-sectional study design involving sixty primary school teachers working in the Kancheepuram District was adopted. A 30-item questionnaire containing questions related to demographic details, teaching habits, and vocal warm-up exercises, practice of vocal hygiene, and perceptions about the importance and effects of vocal warm-up on their voice ability was developed. The questionnaire was content validated by three Speech-Language Pathologists with more than 5 years of experience. Thus, a survey was conducted using the final set of questionnaires.Results: 37% of the teachers had voice problems whereas 30% reported having inconsistent voice issues. 55% have reported practicing breathing exercises as a part of a warm-up for their voice usage. 36% were found to be unaware of any types of exercises or practice of warm-up exercises for voice usage. However, all the subjects accepted the importance of vocal warm-up and hygiene practices to preserve their voice quality.Conclusions: Thus, the findings of the current study will help to create awareness of the importance of voice quality, vocal warm-up, and hygiene practices. It will assist in providing counselling and vocal rehabilitation among professional voice users like teachers.
Purpose: This study investigated the validity and reliability of the revised age-related hearing loss questionnaire (R-ARHLQ) and its effectiveness for the wearing of hearing aids by comparing before and after the wearing of hearing aids.Methods: Total thirty-four seniors ranging from mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss depending on the total scores of the R-ARHLQ participated in this study. The factor analysis, construct and criterion-related validity, item reliability, internal consistency, test-retest reliability of of the R-ARHLQ, and the effectiveness of the wearing of hearing aids were analyzed by various staistically methods.Results: The contents of the R-ARHLQ was grouped into four subcategories: Communication Attitude (10 questions), Communication Difficulty (6 questions), Communication Environment (4 questions), and Communication Interruption (5 questions). The construct validity of the R-ARHLQ ranged from .389 (p <0.05) to .943 (p < 0.01). The criterion-related validity with the self-assessment for hearing screening of the elderly-revised (SHSE-R) ranged from .385 (p <0.05) to .837 (p < 0.01). The item reliability ranged from .818 to .987 (p < 0.001) while the internal consistency ranged from .849 to .922 and the test-retest reliability was .99 (p <0.001). The R-ARHLQ of three different groups (mild, moderate, and severe groups) was significantly different among before the wearing of hearing aids and two weeks and four weeks after the wearing of hearing aids.Conclusions: This suggests that the R-ARHLQ can be used as a clinically useful screening tool and a subjective diagnosis tool for the age-related hearing loss.
Purpose: Elementary school is a crucial time for children’s language development as they acquire skills essential for learning. This study investigates the prevalence of speech and language development delays among early elementary school children in South Korea, providing insight into the speech and language development challenges faced by young students in the country.Methods: Ten speech-language pathologists conducted a screening test for speech and language disorders on a sample of 381 elementary school children aged 7 to 9 (boys 200, girls 181) from the Busan and Gwangju areas in Korea. They used the Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test (REVT) and the Urimal Test of Articulation and Phonology Test (UTAP).Results: Among the 381 children who underwent the test, 170 were identified as being at risk for having speech or language delay or disorders. This suggests that approximately 44.6% of the general population may exhibit speech or language problems. The prevalence of language delays was 35.6% for receptive vocabulary, 27.6% for expressive vocabulary, and 6.04% for speech delays. For boys, language delays were expected to range from 12.9% to 19.7%, while for girls, it was expected to be between 14.6% and 16.0%. In contrast, for articulation issues, 3.9% of boys and 2.1% of girls were found to have speech problems. Most of these children had not only language issues but also some speech disorders. Approximately 4.2% of the identified children had both speech and language problems, 38.6% had only language problems, and 1.8% had only speech problems.Conclusions: The high prevalence of language development delays among early elementary school children underscores the critical need for proactive language screening and intervention in the school environment.
Purpose: Early identification of postlingual hearing loss (HL) and knowing its probable cause is of great significance. Causes that result in irreversible profound HL require immediate radiological investigation and intervention to decide the best listening device.Methods: Case reports of three children with acquired HL using cochlear implant (CI) are being presented to understand the functional outcomes in domains of audition and language skills after 12 months of CI use. The age of onset of deafness and implantation were not identical. Etiology of deafness was meningitis in two cases and viral infection in the other. Consent was obtained from the parents for participating in the study. Case history review was conducted to collect demographic and audiological details of the participants. Functional benefits from CI in those children were assessed in the domains of auditory and language skills using standardized assessment tools respectively.Results: Improvements in all domains of auditory and language skills were observed. However, the degree of benefits depended on the duration of deafness, etiology of deafness, age at onset of deafness, age at implantation and effectiveness of intervention.Conclusions: The results of the study can be used during pre-implant CI counselling to facilitate development of real expectations about the functional benefits of CI in children with acquired HL due to various reasons and showed the importance of early cochlear implantation following the diagnosis. These case presentations give an understanding of the various factors that can affect the functional outcome from CI in children with post-lingual HL.
Purpose: The present study aims at comparing the adverse effects of EHF hearing loss with Digit In Noise perception, between two age groups-Young adults and Early adulthood.Methods: A total of 30 participants aged between 18 to 25 years as Young adults group and 26 to 35 years as early adulthood group were included in the study. All the participants were having EHF hearing loss with normal conventional audiogram. Digit in Noise test was carried out for these subjects. Digit in Noise recognition threshold was considered here.Results: When compared to young adults group, the early adulthood population exhibited poorer thresholds at EHFs as well as 95% of the participants in this group showed poor scores in DIN test. Among the young adults group, 46.6% showed poor DIN scores.Conclusions: Poor DIN recognition thresholds along with EHF loss despite normal conventional audiogram results necessitate the inclusion of EHF audiometry and Speech in noise test as part of the routine audiological evaluations. This helps in early detection, monitoring and prevention of hearing loss even during the third decade of human life.
Purpose: The study aims to check the presence of auditory processing deficit in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.Methods: A total of 10 subjects within the age range of 6-10 years diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were recruited for the study. Buffalo model questionnaire (child form) for CAPD was given to the parents of the children with autism and scores were noted. Auditory cognition which is a sub category of auditory processing was assessed for each subject with the help of Angel sound software version 5.08.03 by Emily Shannon Fu Foundation. Forward digit test was done and the auditory memory of the participant was checked. The result obtained from the subjective perception of parents and objective evaluation was compared and the correlation was checked.Results: The questionnaire given to the parents had different subsections and questions included in the category of memory revealed poor scores. Similarly, the scores obtained for forward digit test was reduced for the children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder when compared to the normative given by the software. The children were able to memorize maximum of only 3 digits.Conclusions: It can be concluded that there is a relation between and subjective perception of parents of children with autism and objective evaluation of auditory processing. In our study, the scores for auditory cognition test are reduced for children with autism. Autistic people with auditory processing disorders can hear, but they have difficulty understanding what they hear. Auditory processing disorder is a crucial pathology of the autistic disorder.
Purpose: This study delves into the practical implications of behavioral skills training, which includes written instruction, modeling, role play, and feedback, on special education teachers’ accurate delivery and maintenance of the picture exchange communication system (PECS) procedures.Methods: The research involved training two elementary special education teachers and one secondary special education teacher, who had no prior experience or training in PECS, to implement PECS in the first stage following the behavioral skills training. The study employed multiple baselines across participant designs, including baseline, written instruction, modeling, role play, feedback, and maintenance phases.Results: The findings underscore the practical benefits of this training, as it significantly improved the teachers’ performance accuracy in the first stage of PECS and maintained their performance accuracy over time, thereby enhancing their effectiveness in the classroom.Conclusions: The behavioral skills training indicated that could be training strategy that focuses on the feasibility of special teachers.
