Three-Year Program Evaluation of a University-Public School Collaborative Partnership.

Purpose: This clinical focus article reports on an innovative program that provides classroom-based speech and language services to school children receiving speech-language therapy while addressing the need for clinical placements for graduate students in speech-language pathology. This program evaluation report centers around the logic model used to develop and implement the program.

Method: The program was implemented in partnership between a university program in speech-language pathology and a nearby school district.

Speech error rates after a sports-related concussion.

Background: Alterations in speech have long been identified as indicators of various neurologic conditions including traumatic brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases, and stroke. The extent to which speech errors occur in milder brain injuries, such as sports-related concussions, is unknown. The present study examined speech error rates in student athletes after a sports-related concussion compared to pre-injury speech performance in order to determine the presence and relevant characteristics of changes in speech production in this less easily detected neurologic condition.

Creating an IPE infusion plan: from foundation to implementation.

Today's health care system has embraced the model of collaborative interprofessional efforts among health care professionals to achieve desired patient health outcomes. The Academy can offer the foundational experiences needed to support and develop interprofessional patient-centered plans of care for health professional students. This paper explores one institution's approach to the creation of an infusion plan which the authors have termed a "structured immersion approach" (SIA) to interprofessional education (IPE).

Manual disfluency in drawing while producing and listening to disfluent speech.

This study investigated the extent to which manual fluency was associated with speech fluency in fluent speakers engaged in dual motor tasks. Thirteen right-handed adult females repeatedly drew circles with a pen on a digitizer tablet under five conditions: (1) a baseline (without reading or listening to speech), (2) reading fluently, (3) reading disfluently, (4) listening to fluent speech, and (5) listening to disfluent speech. The primary measure of disfluency was normalized mean squared jerk (NJ) in the pen strokes.

Autonomic and emotional responses of graduate student clinicians in speech-language pathology to stuttered speech.

Background: Fluent speakers and people who stutter manifest alterations in autonomic and emotional responses as they view stuttered relative to fluent speech samples. These reactions are indicative of an aroused autonomic state and are hypothesized to be triggered by the abrupt breakdown in fluency exemplified in stuttered speech. Furthermore, these reactions are assumed to be the basis for the stereotypes held by different communicative partners towards people who stutter.

Past speech therapy experiences of individuals exploring a new stuttering treatment.

Perceptions of benefits of speech therapy, success of therapy across clinical settings, reasons for returning to therapy, client-clinician relationships, and clinicians' competency were assessed in 57 participants (47 men, 10 women; M age = 34 yr.) trying a new therapy. A majority of respondents had cumulatively five or more years in therapy and at least two stuttering therapies.

Stuttering inhibition via visual feedback at normal and fast speech rates.

Background: Immediate and drastic reductions in stuttering are found when speech is produced in conjunction with a variety of second signals (for example, auditory choral speech and its permutations, and delayed auditory feedback). Initially, researchers suggested a decreased speech rate as a plausible explanation for the reduction in stuttering as people who stutter produced speech under second signals. However, this explanation was refuted by research findings that demonstrated reductions in stuttering at both normal and fast speech rates under second signals.

Effect of continuous speech and non-speech signals on stuttering frequency in adults who stutter.

The inhibitory effects of continuously presented audio signals (/a/, /s/, 1,000 Hz pure-tone) on stuttering were examined. Eleven adults who stutter participated. Participants read four 300-syllable passages (i.

The effect of static and dynamic visual gestures on stuttering inhibition.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the role of steady-state and dynamic visual gestures of vowels in stuttering inhibition. Eight adults who stuttered recited sentences from memory while watching video presentations of the following visual speech gestures: (a) a steady-state /u/, (b) dynamic production of /a-i-u/, (c) steady-state /u/ with an accompanying audible 1 kHz pure tone, and (d) dynamic production of /a-i-u/ with an accompanying audible 1 kHz pure tone. A 1 kHz pure tone and a no-external signal condition served as control conditions.

Is it possible for speech therapy to improve upon natural recovery rates in children who stutter?

Background: Speech and language therapists treating children who stutter appear to be assigned a difficult task. Natural spontaneous remission accounts for approximately 60-80% of all children recovering from stuttering. Despite our best efforts, no protocol has ever shown its effectiveness separate from natural recovery rates (i.

Stuttering frequency on meaningful and nonmeaningful words in adults who stutter.

Previous research has suggested that word meaning can influence the loci and frequency of stuttering moments. Based on this proposition, it was hypothesized that people who stutter will exhibit a larger proportion of stuttering moments on meaningful words when compared to nonmeaningful or nonsense words. In order to test this hypothesis, stuttering frequency was examined among 9 English-speaking adults who stutter as they read a total of 126 words that were either meaningful or nonmeaningful in nature.

Say it with me: stuttering inhibited.

This study examined fluency enhancement in people who stutter via the concomitant presentation of silently mouthed visual speech. Ten adults who stutter recited memorized text while watching another speaker silently mouth linguistically equivalent and linguistically different material. Relative to a control condition, in which no concomitant stimulus was provided, stuttering was reduced by 71% in the linguistically equivalent condition versus only 35% in the linguistically different condition.

Voluntary stuttering suppresses true stuttering: a window on the speech perception-production link.

In accord with a proposed innate link between speech perception and production (e.g., motor theory), this study provides compelling evidence for the inhibition of stuttering events in people who stutter prior to the initiation of the intended speech act, via both the perception and the production of speech gestures.

Investigations of the impact of altered auditory feedback in-the-ear devices on the speech of people who stutter: initial fitting and 4-month follow-up.

Background: Self-contained ear-level devices delivering altered auditory feedback (AAF) for the application with those who stutter have only been recently developed.

Aims: The paper examines the first therapeutic application of self-contained ear-level devices in three experiments. The effect of the device on the proportion of stuttered syllables and speech naturalness was investigated following initial fitting and at 4 months post-fitting.

A temporal window for the central inhibition of stuttering via exogenous speech signals in adults.

We explored a possible temporal window for central stuttering inhibition via exogenously presented speech signals. Thirteen adults who stutter were asked to read while listening to a continuous vowel /a/, or a repeating 1 s vowel /a/ followed by 1, 3 and 5 s silences. In all conditions, stuttering was significantly reduced.

Stuttering frequency on content and function words in adults who stutter: a concept revisited.

This study investigated stuttering frequency as a function of grammatical word type (i.e., content and function).

Active inhibition of stuttering results in pseudofluency: a reply to Craig.

Craig discussed fluency outcomes following stuttering therapy that involved retraining the speech system, on the assumption that the speech end product is truly fluent. As previously outlined by Dayalu and Kalinowski, we strongly disagree with the notion that behavioral paradigms can ever result in automatic, long lasting natural sounding fluent speech. Fluent speech is within the grasp of one who stutters as seen in the effects of choral speech and derivatives such as delayed auditory feedback.

Pseudofluency in adults who stutter: the illusory outcome of therapy.

The majority of therapy programs for people who stutter are aimed at modifying the entire speech output by using techniques that reduce the overt signature events. Use of these techniques for extended time periods are thought to induce true fluency that is automatic, natural, and effortless. It is proposed that the present form of therapeutic intervention induces pseudofluency rather than true fluency.