A temporal-based therapy for children with inconsistent phonological disorder: A case-series

Area of Science:

• Speech-Language Pathology
• Developmental Psychology
• Auditory Neuroscience

Background:

• Children with inconsistent phonological disorder (IPD) often exhibit deficits in temporal auditory processing, specifically higher gap detection thresholds.
• These deficits may impact phonological planning and production, leading to inconsistent and inaccurate speech.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the efficacy of a novel temporal-based therapy, T-CVT, for improving speech production in children with IPD.
• To determine if T-CVT enhances phonological planning abilities by providing extra time for phoneme identification.

Main Methods:

• A new temporal-based therapy (T-CVT) was developed, digitally lengthening formant transitions in therapy words.
• Four preschool children with IPD received T-CVT for eight weeks.
• Speech consistency (% inconsistency) and accuracy (percentage of consonants correct - PCC) were measured before, after, and at follow-up.

Main Results:

• T-CVT significantly improved word production: % inconsistency decreased from 59% to 2%, and PCC increased from 61% to 92%.
• Improvements were maintained at three-month follow-up (2% inconsistency, 99% PCC).
• Generalization to non-treated material was observed, with % inconsistency decreasing from 67% to 10% and PCC increasing from 63% to 90% in nonword repetition tasks.

Conclusions:

• The T-CVT intervention shows significant efficacy in improving speech consistency and accuracy in children with IPD.
• The findings support the hypothesis that targeting temporal auditory processing deficits can enhance phonological planning and production in children with IPD.
• T-CVT offers a promising therapeutic approach for children experiencing speech sound disorders associated with temporal processing difficulties.