Steinhardt researchers found in a September study that using visual and auditory therapy methods rapidly treats speech impediments in children. 

The team, which includes co-authors from Syracuse University, the University of Maryland and Montclair State University, had sessions with 108 children aged 9-15. They found that biofeedback speech therapy — which uses visual technology to assess and give feedback for residual speech sound disorder — proved to be more effective than traditional motor-based techniques, like modeling sounds for children to imitate or verbally coaching them on their tongue positioning. 

Biofeedback is implemented in the form of an ultrasound probe that visually shows children their tongue positions, or a more affordable visual-acoustic method that uses music technology to depict children’s speech as waves on a screen. The use of screens in the study also maintained children’s short attention spans during sessions.

“There’s a lot of guesswork in traditional articulation therapy, and biofeedback is trying to make it visual,” Tara McAllister, Steinhardt professor and lead author of the study, told WSN. “With the visual-acoustic biofeedback, we still don’t know exactly where the tongue is in the mouth, but we can see if the current production is getting closer to the target.”

Children were split into three groups, some being treated with biofeedback visuals, some with visual-acoustic biofeedback and others with traditional motor-based treatment.

Using an acoustic measure that identifies correct and incorrect pronunciation, the team tracked improvements of children saying the letter “r” in sessions over a 10-week period. They found that while progress was made with all treatments, the two groups that underwent biofeedback therapy improved at a rate that was 2.4 times more efficient over three sessions. The study showed no notable differences in outcome between the two types of biofeedback.

Despite the positive results, McAllister noted that there are concerns surrounding the affordability of ultrasound biofeedback equipment and its accessibility to speech therapists. The software, which costs around $2,000, is “not within a school speech pathologist’s budget,” she said. 

“It has always been really important to me to make sure that we’re doing good science, but also making it accessible to practitioners in the real world,” McAllister said. “Collaboration with music technology was a really important way to bridge that gap.”

Contact Charlotte Guest at [email protected].