Is there any room for ChatGPT AI bot in speech-language pathology?

Area of Science:

• Speech-Language Pathology
• Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
• Clinical Informatics

Background:

• The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into clinical practice offers potential benefits for healthcare professionals.
• Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) face diverse demands in patient care, assessment, and documentation.
• Evaluating AI tools for clinical utility is crucial for improving efficiency and patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and relevance of ChatGPT-4.0 for speech-language pathology (SLP) tasks.
• To identify specific areas where ChatGPT-4.0 can effectively assist SLPs.
• To determine limitations of ChatGPT-4.0 in clinical applications for speech, language, and swallowing disorders.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional descriptive study involving 15 practicing speech-language pathologists (SLPs).
• Evaluation of ChatGPT-4.0 responses to task-specific prompts across six core SLP areas.
• Utilized a Likert-type scale to rate response accuracy, relevance, and comprehensiveness for seven disorder categories.

Main Results:

• ChatGPT-4.0 demonstrated predominantly high accuracy, comprehensiveness, and relevance for speech and language disorder tasks.
• High performance was noted in report writing, clinical decision support, and client education material generation.
• Variable accuracy was observed in therapy stimulus generation and therapy planning tasks.

Conclusions:

• ChatGPT-4.0 shows significant potential to aid speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in report writing, decision support, and educational material creation.
• Further investigation is required to refine ChatGPT-4.0's utility in therapy planning and stimulus generation.
• AI integration, including tools like ChatGPT, could enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of speech-language pathology services.