Speech Therapy For Children Research Articles

Language disorders in young children: when is speech therapy recommended?

Objective: Analysis of treatment recommendation given by speech therapists. Evaluation of the language abilities in the examined children and re-examination of those abilities after 12 months. Materials and methods: Thirty-four children, aged between 2.0 and 5.3 years, referred to speech therapists by their General Practitioners because of possible language problems were included in a prospective study. The number of children receiving speech therapy and the number of speech therapy sessions received during 1 year, and the therapy effect on three quantitative language measures were compiled. Results: In 97% of the children referred to a speech therapist, speech therapy was recommended. Most of these children showed average to above-average language scores on standardised tests for sentence development (61%) and language comprehension (79%). In addition, for most children spontaneous speech, as screened by the Groningen Diagnostic Speech Norms, was age-adequate (76%). The children's problems consisted of pronunciation difficulties or periods of stammering. After 12 months for 50% of these children speech therapy was still continued which means that the articulation problems still were present. The mean number of speech therapy sessions was 26.7. The language scores on the three language tests remained relatively stable over the 12-month interval. Conclusions: In young children pronunciation difficulties often lead to the recommendation for speech therapy. For a large number of children therapy takes more than a year, indicating that speech therapy cannot influence these problems to a great extent. In addition language scores remained relatively stable. Therefore, language problems and especially articulation problems in young children should be reconsidered regarding maturation and normal variations in speech motor development. A ‘watchful waiting’ approach should be taken more often.

Efficacy of speech therapy in children with language disorders: specific language impairment compared with language impairment in comorbidity with cognitive delay

Objective: this article discusses the effect of speech therapy on language comprehension, language production and non-verbal functioning in two groups of children with developmental language disorders. Design: retrospective study—a follow-up after a mean of 2 years. Materials and methods: verbal and non-verbal functioning before and after therapy were examined in 31 language-impaired children with normal hearing and good health. In 16 children the language functioning was substantial behind their non-verbal functioning. They were categorised as children with specific language impairment (SLI). In 15 children the language problem was in comorbidity with cognitive delay, and these were categorised as children with non-SLI. At the first examination the children were at the age of 1;5–5;4 years and at the second examination they were at the age of 3;4–6;11 years. The children were examined for language comprehension (Standardised Dutch version of the Reynell Developmental Comprehension Scale), spontaneous language production (Groningen Diagnostic Speech norms) and non-verbal functioning (Snijders-Oomen non-verbal intelligence scale for children between 2 1 2 and 7 years). Results: in both groups, a significant improvement was found in language functioning as well as in non-verbal functioning. Language comprehension and non-verbal IQ-scores in both groups improved by about the same amount. Language production made significantly more progress in the SLI group than in the non-SLI group. The improvements in the SLI group were mainly reached by speech therapy, whereas in the non-SLI group this was less the case. Conclusions: verbal and non-verbal development can improve in young children with developmental language delay. This underlines the idea that language and cognitive development are interacting and influencing each other in a positive way. Children with SLI seem to benefit more from speech therapy, whereas children with cognitive delay seem to benefit more from special education.

7. Speech therapy for children with otitis media with effusion

7. Speech therapy for children with otitis media with effusion

Trial of intensive compared with weekly speech therapy in preschool children.

Forty two preschool children referred to a speech therapy department were randomly allocated to receive intensive individual speech therapy or the more traditional once weekly approach. Boys and minority ethnic groups were referred most frequently. Speech therapy improved expression more than comprehension, as measured on Reynell scales. The mean improvements were 0.5 SDs (95% confidence intervals (CI) 0.3 to 0.7) and 0.3 (95% CI 0.1 to 0.5) respectively. There was a greater improvement in children receiving intensive compared with weekly therapy in the expression scores (0.8 SDs (95% CI 0.5 to 1.1) v 0.2 SDs (95% CI -0.1 to 0.5]. White and non-white children had similar improvements in comprehension scores but white children had greater improvement in expression scores (1.1 SDs v 0.3 SDs). This difference was seen in both therapy groups. Randomised trials are useful in the evaluation of speech therapy in children.

高度難聴児の言語指導 前言語的段階から３語連鎖の獲得まで

高度難聴児の言語指導 前言語的段階から３語連鎖の獲得まで

Speech--language rehabilitation for children in Switzerland.

Speech therapy for children is well known in Switzerland, but not all regions get the same supply. The average age of children who receive speech therapy is 7.9 years. This late beginning of treatment leads to longer duration of therapy. Therapy costs are shared by various institutions, to a wide extent by the Schweizerische Invaliden-Versicherung. The public has to be further informed about the meaning of speech and language rehabilitation.

Some results of speech therapy for children with cleft palate

Little information is provided in the literature regarding the efficacy of speech therapy for children with cleft palate. Although Phillips et al. (4, 5) have reported improvement in language skills for preschool children who have received therapy, current information concerning the acquisition of articulation skills for children with clefts who receive therapy is incon— clusive and practically nonexistent. Since speech therapy was available to subjects in a previously reported study (12), an attempt was made to compare the articulation skills of children with clefts who have received speech therapy with those who have not. In the initial study, the articulation and the velopharyngeal competency of 108 Danish cleft palate patients, born in 1963-64, were assessed (12). When this sample was compared on articulation tests'to their normal peers, they were significantly poorer in articulation skills. Forty—eight percent of the subjects were judged as exhibiting velopharyngeal com-petency, 41 % were rated as having a marginal mechanism, and 11 % were rated as incompetent. Comparison of articulation scores between the normal and the competent groups indicated that cleft subjects with velopharyngeal closure were inferior in articulation skills. Procedure Each of the 108 subjects was administered a 99 item articulation test (18) and a previously described battery of measures derived to evaluate velopharyngeal competency (12). In addition, each parent was asked to fill out a brief questionnaire which consisted of the following: (1) Has your child ever received speech therapy? (2) If so, at what age did therapy begin? (3) How often did he go to therapy? (4) How many sessions of therapy has he attended? Answers of the parents were validated for each patient by checking the records at the Statens Institut for Talelidende in Denmark, which serves