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Visual Acoustic Biofeedback for RSE Via Telepractice

Phase 2
Completed
Conditions
Speech Sound Disorder
Interventions
Other: No treatment - waitlist
Behavioral: Visual Acoustic Biofeedback
Registration Number
NCT04858022
Lead Sponsor
Montclair State University
Brief Summary

This research will meet a public health need by evaluating the efficacy of speech intervention supplemented with real-time visual-acoustic biofeedback when delivered using remote technologies.

Detailed Description

In a crossover design, participants will be randomly assigned to receive 10 weeks/20 sessions of visual-acoustic biofeedback treatment via telepractice followed by a 10-week period of no treatment, or the same two conditions in the reverse order. Production accuracy will be assessed with standard probes (20 syllables, 30 words, and 10 sentences containing /r/ in various phonetic contexts) administered prior to the beginning of treatment (baseline), after the first 10-week phase, and again at the end of the study.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
40
Inclusion Criteria
  • Must be between 9;0 and 15;11 years of age at the time of enrollment.
  • Must speak English as the dominant language (i.e., must have begun learning English by age 2, per parent report).
  • Must speak a rhotic dialect of English.
  • Must pass a pure-tone hearing screening at 20dB hearing level.
  • Must pass a brief examination of oral structure and function.
  • Must exhibit less than 30% accuracy, based on consensus across 2 trained listeners, on a probe list eliciting rhotics in various phonetic contexts at the word level.
  • Must exhibit no more than 3 sounds other than /r/ in error on the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation-3 (GFTA-3).
Exclusion Criteria
  • Must not receive a T score more than 1.3 SD below the mean on the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence-2 (WASI-2) Matrix Reasoning
  • Must not receive a scaled score of 7 or higher on the Recalling Sentences and Formulated Sentences subtests of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5 (CELF-5).
  • Must not have an existing diagnosis of developmental disability or major neurobehavioral syndrome such as cerebral palsy, Down Syndrome, or Autism Spectrum Disorder

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
FACTORIAL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Visual Acoustic Biofeedback for RSE via Telepractice-WaitNo treatment - waitlistCondition 2: Waitlist-first Following the initial evaluation, 10 children with RSE will be allocated to a 10 week no treatment condition.
Visual Acoustic Biofeedback for RSE via Telepractice-TreatmentVisual Acoustic BiofeedbackCondition1: Treatment-first Children with RSE and typical perception will be allocated to a randomized controlled trial measuring the efficacy of online visual-acoustic biofeedback treatment. Ten children with RSE will receive 10 weeks of visual-acoustic biofeedback training via video call.
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Change in perceptually rated accuracy of /r/Pre-, mid- (after 10 weeks), and 1 week post-treatment

To assess generalization of treatment gains to untreated words, participants will be assessed with standard probes (30 words \[considered the primary target\], 20 syllables, and 10 sentences containing /r/ in various phonetic contexts). Stimuli in each probe will be presented individually in randomized order with blocking by stimulus type (word, syllable, sentence). No auditory models will be provided; for children with reading difficulty, semantic cues will be provided to elicit the intended word. Individual words will be isolated from the audio record of each word probe and presented in randomized order for binary rating (correct/incorrect) by 9 naïve listeners who are blind to treatment condition and time point (but will see the written representation of each target word). The investigators will use the proportion of "correct" ratings for each token as our primary measure of perceptually rated accuracy.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Change in social-emotional well-beingPre- and 1 week post-treatment

This 11-item survey, which asks parents to report the impact of speech disorder on their child's social, emotional, and academic well-being, was validated in a published study by members of the research team. An impact score, calculated as described in our previous research, will be used as the primary measure of socio-emotional well-being.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Montclair State University

🇺🇸

Upper Montclair, New Jersey, United States

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