Purpose: This study evaluates the initial efficacy of Chaining SPeech Lessons in Intensive Ten-minute Sessions (SPLITS), an alternative service delivery model for the Speech Motor Chaining treatment approach. We hypothesized that Chaining SPLITS would result in improvements in /[Voiced alveolar approximant]/ accuracy on syllables and untrained…

Background: Children born with cleft palate ± lip (CP ± L) are at risk of speech sound disorder (SSD). Up to 40% continue to have SSD at age 5-6 years. These difficulties are typically described as articulatory in nature and often include cleft speech characteristics (CSC) hypothesized to result from structural differences. In non-CP ± L SSD…

Purpose: This study sought to determine the feasibility of using phonetic complexity manipulations as a way to systematically assess articulatory deficits in talkers with progressive dysarthria due to Parkinson's disease (PD). Method: Articulatory kinematics were recorded using three-dimensional electromagnetic articulography from 15 talkers with…

Some children's speech impairment resolves spontaneously. Others have persistent problems affecting academic and social development. Identifying early markers that reliably predict long-term outcome would allow better prioritization for preschool intervention. This article evaluates the significance of different types of speech errors, made by 93…

Purpose: A review of the salient characteristics of motor speech disorders and common assessment protocols revealed the need for a novel reading passage tailored specifically to differentiate between and among the dysarthrias (DYSs) and apraxia of speech (AOS). Method: "The Caterpillar" passage was designed to provide a contemporary, easily read,…

Purpose: The autosegmental-metrical (AM) framework represents an established methodology for intonational analysis in unimpaired speaker populations but has found little application in describing intonation in motor speech disorders (MSDs). This study compared the intonation patterns of unimpaired participants (CON) and those with Parkinson's…

Multidimensional analysis involves moving away from one-dimensional analyses such as most articulation tests to comprehensive analyses involving levels of phonological information from the word level down to segments. This article outlines one such approach that looks at four levels from words to segments, using nine phonological measures. It also…

A recurring difficulty for researchers using electropalatography (EPG) is the wide variation in spatial patterns that occurs between speakers. High inter-speaker variability, combined with small numbers of participants, makes it problematic (1) to identify differences in tongue-palate contact across groups of speakers and (2) to define "normal"…

We describe an analysis of speech errors on a confrontation naming task in a man with progressive speech degeneration of 10-year duration from Pick's disease. C.S. had a progressive non-fluent aphasia together with a motor speech impairment and early assessment indicated some naming impairments. There was also an absence of significant…

This brief article reflects on some pitfalls inherent in the learning and teaching of segmental phonetic transcription. We suggest that a gestural interpretation to disordered speech data, in conjunction with segmental phonetic transcription, can add valuable insight into patterns of disordered speech, and that a gestural orientation should form…

Jaw movement patterns were examined longitudinally in a 3-year-old male with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and compared with a typically developing control group. The child with CAS was followed for 8 months, until he began accurately and consistently producing the bilabial phonemes /p/, /b/, and /m/. A movement tracking system was used to…

Nine speakers with verbal apraxia repeated 12 consonant-vowel-consonant target syllables four times each. Significantly more errors were produced in voiced than in voiceless contexts. Sixty-six percent of productions were produced in the same manner for first and last trials. (Author/DB)

An articulatory inventory was administered to 19 dysarthric adults and scored using two judging formats--phoneme identification and traditional testing. Results indicated the traditional testing format consistently overestimated the articulation skills of subjects, especially severely involved subjects. (Author/DB)

The article describes the Clinical Articulation Profile, an easily administered imitation task that measures the ability of the preschool child with articulation disorders to say sounds in isolation, in syllables, and in words. Scores on the profile are sensitive to minimal changes in articulation ability. (Author/CL)

One aspect of the phonology of a four-year-old child with Down's syndrome was explored: a phonological constraint ordered his consonants from those produced at the front of the mouth to those produced at the back of the mouth. The value of an analysis that recognizes phonological strategies and larger than phoneme units is discussed. (Author/SEW)