A Scoping Review of Intervention Outcomes for School Students With Communication Difficulties.

Purpose: For speech-language pathologists (SLPs) working in schools, outcome measurement is an important element of practice, enabling us to evaluate the efficacy of our service provision and guiding future decision making, funding, and resource allocation. When selecting outcomes to measure, it is helpful to consider both the level at which change may be occurring and the extent or impact of that change. The primary aim of this review was to identify the outcomes measured in intervention studies for school-aged children with speech, language, and communication difficulties (SLCD) using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to classify the outcomes.

Benefits of a professional development course on transcription for practising speech-language pathologists.

Transcription of speech sounds is a fundamental skill used by speech-language pathologists. Little is known about the impact of professional development courses on transcription accuracy and confidence. This study explored speech-language pathologists' use and perceptions of transcription and the effect of a professional development course on their transcription accuracy and confidence.

Diagnosing inconsistent phonological disorder: quantitative and qualitative measures.

Studies of children's consistency of word production allow identification of speech sound disorder. Inconsistent errors are reported for two groups of children: (CAS) due to difficulty with the motoric precision and consistency of speech movements; and (IPD) attributed to impaired phonological planning. This paper describes the inconsistent productions of children with IPD in comparison to typically developing children.

The exploration of speech-language pathology students' perceptions and attitudes towards written clinical reflection.

Written clinical reflection is frequently used in speech-language pathology training programs to develop student clinical skills. The aim of this study was to explore speech-language pathology students' perceptions towards written clinical reflection. Seventy-two undergraduate speech-language pathology students completed an online survey.

Preschool children's consistency of word production.

Consistency of word production contributes to carers' ability to understand children's speech. Reports of the proportion of words produced consistently by typically developing preschool children, however, vary widely from 17% to 87%. This paper examines the quantitative (consistency count) and qualitative (e.

Is children's speech development changing? Preliminary evidence from Australian English-speaking 3-year-olds.

Around 9% of children have difficulty acquiring intelligible speech despite typical sensory, neuro-motor and cognitive function. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) rely on descriptions of children's speech errors to identify speech sound disorder (SSD) and determine intervention targets and goals. Existing normative data, however, need re-evaluation to reflect changes in populations and the language learning environment.

Narrative skills of children born preterm.

Background: The majority of children born preterm are considered neurologically normal and free of disability. However, follow-up studies at school age report that preterm children born without major impairment have more subtle impairments, including language difficulties, which influence their ability to function. These findings indicate a need to examine specific language-processing skills in children born preterm across the school years.

The impact of selecting different contrasts in phonological therapy.

Previous research indicates that the extent of progress made by children with phonological disorders depends upon the nature of the word pairs contrasted in therapy. For example, phonemes that differ maximally in terms of place, manner, voicing and sound class (e.g.

Differentiating normal variability from inconsistency in children's speech: normative data.

Background: In young, typically developing children, some word production variability is expected, but highly inconsistent speech is considered a clinical marker for disorder. Speech-language pathologists need to identify variability versus inconsistency, yet these terms are not clearly differentiated. Not only is it important to identify inconsistency, but also it needs to be defined and measured so that clinical decisions are evidence based.

Intervention for children with severe speech disorder: a comparison of two approaches.

Background: Children with speech disorder are a heterogeneous group (e.g. in terms of severity, types of errors and underlying causal factors).

Phonological development: a normative study of British English-speaking children.

This paper reports a normative study on the phonological development of British English-speaking children. Speech samples of 684 children, aged between 3;0 and 6;11 years, randomly selected from nurseries and schools in eight different areas throughout the UK, were collected and analysed to obtain normative data. This paper reports on two aspects of speech development: the age of acquisition of sounds (phonetic acquisition) and the age that error patterns were suppressed (phonemic acquisition).