Telepractice:Acoustic characteristics of the patient, parent, and provider speech

Abstract

How does the use of telepractice during speech therapy affect the acoustic characteristics of the speech-language pathologist (SLP), the child and her parent speech compared to those in conventional in-person intervention? This study examined prosodic and lexical characteristics in an SLP, mothers and their children with cochlear implants (CI) (n = 7, mean age 59 months, range 43–81 months) productions during one 30-min in-person session and one sequential tele-session, order counterbalanced. Mean pitch (Hz), pitch range (Hz), utterance duration (s), speech rate (syll/utterance duration) and mean length of utterance (MLU) were measured in 30 utterances produced by each child, mother and the SLP in the in-person and tele-sessions. Preliminary analysis indicates that the child, her mother and the SLP produced similar mean pitch across both sessions, however, their pitch range was more expanded during the in-person than the tele- session. The SLP and the mothers' utterance durations were longer during the in-person than the tele- session. The child, her mother and the SLP produced faster speech rate and a higher MLU during in-person than the tele- session. Results suggest that acoustic and lexical (MLU) characteristics of the child, the caregiver and the provider speech are affected by telepractice.