Background: Adults presenting with unrepaired cleft palate are not a rare occurrence in middle-income countries. However, many surgeons are hesitant to operate on these individuals because of the challenges in repairing the wide adult cleft palate, as well as concerns regarding any improvement in speech in older patients. Unfortunately, the…

Background: Head and neck cancer (HNC) is amongst the 10 most common cancers worldwide and has a major effect on patients' quality of life. Given the complexity of this unique group of patients, a multidisciplinary team approach is preferable. Amongst the debilitating sequels of HNC and/or its treatment, swallowing, speech and voice impairments…

Purpose: This study evaluates the initial efficacy of Chaining SPeech Lessons in Intensive Ten-minute Sessions (SPLITS), an alternative service delivery model for the Speech Motor Chaining treatment approach. We hypothesized that Chaining SPLITS would result in improvements in /[Voiced alveolar approximant]/ accuracy on syllables and untrained…

Background: Ultrasound visual biofeedback (UVBF) has the potential to be useful for the treatment of compensatory errors in speakers with cleft palate ± lip (CP±L), but there is little research on its effectiveness, or on how acceptable families find the technique. This study reports on parents' and children's perspectives on taking part in a…

Background: Children born with cleft palate ± lip (CP ± L) are at risk of speech sound disorder (SSD). Up to 40% continue to have SSD at age 5-6 years. These difficulties are typically described as articulatory in nature and often include cleft speech characteristics (CSC) hypothesized to result from structural differences. In non-CP ± L SSD…

Purpose: Phonologically complex targets (e.g., [pl-]) are understood to facilitate widespread gains following speech sound intervention, and yet, available research largely features word-"initial" clusters. The present study investigates intervention effects following treatment of complex clusters presented in word-"final"…

Purpose: This study compared the occurrence of different types of generalization (within-class, across-class, and total generalization) following motor-phonetic speech therapy and linguistic-phonological speech therapy in children with a cleft palate ± cleft lip (CP ± L). Method: Thirteen children with a CP ± L (M[subscript age] = 7.50 years) who…

Background: Children with speech sound difficulties often require educational psychology services, yet systematic reviews examining the association between these difficulties and language or reading problems are lacking. This meta-analysis examines whether these children are at higher risk of language and reading difficulties compared to their…

Background: Speech sound disorders (SSDs) are broadly defined as difficulty producing speech sounds in childhood. Reported prevalence of SSD varies from 2.3% to 24.6%, depending on how SSD is defined and the included age range. SSDs that do not resolve before age 8 can have a lasting impact on a child's academic achievements. The intensity of…

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…