The Compartmental Tongue.

Purpose: Tongue anatomy and function is widely described as consisting of four extrinsic muscles to control position and four intrinsic muscles to control shape. This myoarchitecture cannot, however, explain independent tongue body and blade movement nor accurately model the subtlety of observed lingual shapes. This study presents the case for a finer neuromuscular structure and functional description.

Automated assessment of hyoid movement during normal swallow using ultrasound.

Background: The potential for using ultrasound by speech and language therapists (SLTs) as an adjunct clinical tool to assess swallowing function has received increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a recent review highlighting the need for further research on normative data, objective measurement, elicitation protocol and training. The dynamic movement of the hyoid, visible in ultrasound, is crucial in facilitating bolus transition and protection of the airway during a swallow and has shown promise as a biomarker of swallowing function.

Aims: To examine the kinematics of the hyoid during a swallow using ultrasound imaging and to relate the patterns to the different stages of a normal swallow.

Covert contrast and covert errors in persistent velar fronting.

Acoustic and articulatory studies demonstrate covert contrast in perceptually neutralised phonemic contrasts in both typical children and children with speech disorders. These covert contrasts are thought to be relatively common and symptomatic of phonetic speech disorders. However, clinicians in the speech therapy clinic have had no easy way of identifying this covertness.

Using ultrasound visual biofeedback to treat persistent primary speech sound disorders.

Growing evidence suggests that speech intervention using visual biofeedback may benefit people for whom visual skills are stronger than auditory skills (for example, the hearing-impaired population), especially when the target articulation is hard to describe or see. Diagnostic ultrasound can be used to image the tongue and has recently become more compact and affordable leading to renewed interest in it as a practical, non-invasive visual biofeedback tool. In this study, we evaluate its effectiveness in treating children with persistent speech sound disorders that have been unresponsive to traditional therapy approaches.

Advances in EPG for treatment and research: an illustrative case study.

Electropalatography (EPG), a technique which reveals tongue-palate contact patterns over time, is a highly effective tool for speech research. We report here on recent developments by Articulate Instruments Ltd. These include hardware for Windows-based computers, backwardly compatible (with Reading EPG3) software systems for clinical intervention and laboratory-based analysis for EPG and acoustic data, and an enhanced clinical interface with client and file management tools.

Chewing and swallowing after surgical treatment for oral cancer: functional evaluation in 196 selected cases.

One hundred ninety-six patients treated for oral cancer between 1992 and 1999 self-scored their speech, chewing, and swallowing using a new self-questionnaire (Functional Intraoral Glasgow Scale) developed at Canniesburn Hospital, Glasgow, to assess the functional efficiency of patients treated for intraoral cancer. The patients were distributed into 12 homogeneous groups, according to the site and size of surgical resection, carefully mapped out on standard diagrams of the oral cavity. The functional outcome for chewing and swallowing was correlated to the site and size of resected tissue, to the reconstruction modality, and to radiotherapy and compared with the speech quality.

Objective assessment of speech after surgical treatment for oral cancer: experience from 196 selected cases.

In 1992, a personal computer-based workstation for speech-digitized analysis was developed in conjunction with Canniesburn Hospital and Edinburgh University to measure all dispersion in speech after surgery for oral cancer. The voices of 196 patients with tumor of the oral cavity were recorded preoperatively and postoperatively. Surgical resection was carefully mapped out on standard diagrams of the oral cavity.