Simplified Ultrasound Feedback for Speech Remediation

Summary

Recent research in motor control shows that people learn new movements best when they receive feedback external to the body. Traditional ultrasound speech therapy works well for many children, but involves teaching children to focus on their internal tongue movements. The goal of the study is to test whether ultrasound biofeedback delivered without showing children a display of their tongue movements will be effective as a treatment for residual speech sound disorders in children. We focus on children who have trouble producing the sound "r" as in "rabbit". The first aim is to develop a fast reliable system to track movements of different parts of the tongue using ultrasound and to identify which combinations of movements will produce a good "r" and which do not. The second aim is to develop a motivational game in which children receive feedback on the success of their tongue movements by what happens to an animated character on a screen. This developed version of ultrasound feedback therapy will be compared to the traditional version of ultrasound feedback therapy to determine how the two approaches can best be utilized in the clinic.

Conditions

• Speech Sound Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Traditional ultrasound biofeedback

Participants use a B-mode ultrasound device to view their tongue movement on a screen. The participant sees the ultrasound image of their tongue moving in sagittal plane on the screen. The speech-language pathologist working with the participant also views participant's tongue movement and provides verbal instruction on how the participant should move their tongue to produce a perceptually correct "r" sound in simple syllables (CV, VC), as well as evaluative statements about accuracy. Participants practice moving their tongue along with these instructions, practicing the simple syllable (CV, VC) words. VC=vowel consonant syllables (ex. "or") CV=consonant vowel syllables (ex. "ra")

BEHAVIORAL

Simplified ultrasound biofeedback

Participants use a B-mode ultrasound device that captures the movement of their tongue and software that transforms the movement of their tongue into gamified objects on a screen. The participant sees a game object (a character) move on the screen towards goals; the movement of the game object represents the movement of the tongue and the goals are representative of tongue movements that correlate with an acoustic percept of accuracy. The speech-language pathologist working with the participant views the movement of the game object and provides verbal instruction on how the participant should move the game character in order to reach the goals when saying simple syllable words (CV, VC) as well as evaluative statements about accuracy. Participants practice moving their tongue along with these instructions, practicing the simple syllable (CV, VC) words. VC=vowel consonant syllables (ex. "or") CV=consonant vowel syllables (ex. "ra")

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Cincinnati

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Suzanne E Boyce, PhD · University of Cincinnati

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

7 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-10-24

Primary Completion

2024-12-31

Completion

2025-08-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations