Down Syndrome Speech Intelligibility Diagnostic Treatment Study

Summary

The 'Down syndrome speech intelligibility diagnostic treatment study' is a pilot clinical intervention study assessing the efficacy of an integrative speech treatment approach for individuals with Down syndrome (DS). This study will use a single-subject design with 10 male participants with DS, aged 7 to 16 years. The proposed intervention, combines two treatment approaches that are documented to be efficacious with other speech disorders: 1) The Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach, designed for highly unintelligible speech, as guided by the Hodson Assessment of Phonological Patterns (HAPP-3); and 2) Script training, a functional speech motor intervention that promotes phrase-level productions. During the twelve-week intensive intervention period, both approaches will be adapted to prioritize the production of words with low vowels to incorporate increased practice of the low-front and low-back vowels. This modification is based on the investigator's perceptual, acoustic and anatomic research findings. Outcome measures will include perceptual, intelligibility, and acoustic analyses obtained from acoustic recordings. These measures will be used to assess treatment efficacy, and to gain insight into the motoric versus anatomic limitations in speech production commonly present in individuals with DS.

Conditions

• Down Syndrome

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Speech therapy addressing phonology and motor learning

Determine the efficacy of a newly devised intensive speech treatment plan, to use with individuals with Down syndrome, that combines two treatment approaches: Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach and Script training, while adapting each to prioritize use of practice words with low vowels given research findings that the low vowels /ɑ/ as in 'hot' and /æ/as in 'hat' are less intelligible than the high vowels /i/ as in 'heat' and /u/ as in 'boot'; also, vowel acoustic analyses that revealed word-intelligibility to improve when the production of the low vowels /ɑ/ and /æ/ had more distinctive second formants/vocal tract resonances (a measure that is associated with tongue front-back movement). Each intervention session will include 40-50 minutes of the adapted 'Cycles Phonological Remediation Approach' focusing on articulatory/phonological training at the syllable/word level, and 10-20 minutes of the adapted Script program for motor training at the sentence level.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• University of Wisconsin, Madison

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Houri K Vorperian, PhD, CCC-SLP · University of Wisconsin, Madison - Waisman Center

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

7 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

MALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-09-05

Primary Completion

2020-02-28

Completion

2020-02-28

Countries

• United States

Study Locations