12 Nov Preliminary Speech Perception Performance Profiles of School-Age Children With Childhood Apraxia of Speech, Speech Sound Disorder, and Typical Development
Summary by Elaine Hitchcock, PhD
There is very little research that looks at how to test speech perception in school-age children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), a motor speech disorder that makes it hard to speak clearly. This is likely because early speech perception tests were often very long and fatiguing for children to complete. As a result, speech perception, defined as the ability to hear and organize speech input, was often not assessed in children with speech production difficulties even though previous research has suggested that such issues may lead to difficulty with speech planning and production.
In this study, we looked at speech perception skills in school-age children with SSD, children with CAS and children without problems in speech production. We assessed speech perception using the Wide Range Acoustic Accuracy Scale (WRAAS), a program that offers adaptive response tracking to offset past challenges of child fatigue. We used WRAAS to find the level where each child no longer heard a difference between two sounds in three consonant–vowel syllable contrasts (/bɑ/−/wɑ/, /dɑ/−/gɑ/, /rɑ/−/wɑ/). Each syllable sound pair was systematically varied along a single acoustic feature for seven children with CAS with difficulty producing /r/, seven children with SSD with /r/ errors, and seven typically developing (TD) children with no speech errors. We could then compare the average perceptual skill level for each syllable pair across groups.
These early findings reveal clinically relevant perceptual deficits for children with CAS supporting further investigation of accessible tools to assess speech perception in young children. The results of this study provide evidence that programs such as WRAAS may be used to efficiently, and reliably, find differences in children’s speech perception skill and that unique perception performance profiles may exist for children with CAS. Therefore, there is a critical need to examine speech perception in a larger cohort of school-age children with CAS whose speech production error patterns may appear to be no different than those of children with SSD and whose errors are not attributed to motor planning/programming deficits.
Hitchcock, E. R., Swartz, M. T., & Cabbage, K. L. (2024). Preliminary speech perception performance profiles of school-age children with childhood apraxia of speech, speech sound disorder, and typical development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67 (9S). 3480-3494 https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00634
Summary by Elaine Hitchcock, PhD
There is very little research that looks at how to test speech perception in school-age children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), a motor speech disorder that makes it hard to speak clearly. This is likely because early speech perception tests were often very long and fatiguing for children to complete. As a result, speech perception, defined as the ability to hear and organize speech input, was often not assessed in children with speech production difficulties even though previous research has suggested that such issues may lead to difficulty with speech planning and production.
In this study, we looked at speech perception skills in school-age children with SSD, children with CAS and children without problems in speech production. We assessed speech perception using the Wide Range Acoustic Accuracy Scale (WRAAS), a program that offers adaptive response tracking to offset past challenges of child fatigue. We used WRAAS to find the level where each child no longer heard a difference between two sounds in three consonant–vowel syllable contrasts (/bɑ/−/wɑ/, /dɑ/−/gɑ/, /rɑ/−/wɑ/). Each syllable sound pair was systematically varied along a single acoustic feature for seven children with CAS with difficulty producing /r/, seven children with SSD with /r/ errors, and seven typically developing (TD) children with no speech errors. We could then compare the average perceptual skill level for each syllable pair across groups.
These early findings reveal clinically relevant perceptual deficits for children with CAS supporting further investigation of accessible tools to assess speech perception in young children. The results of this study provide evidence that programs such as WRAAS may be used to efficiently, and reliably, find differences in children’s speech perception skill and that unique perception performance profiles may exist for children with CAS. Therefore, there is a critical need to examine speech perception in a larger cohort of school-age children with CAS whose speech production error patterns may appear to be no different than those of children with SSD and whose errors are not attributed to motor planning/programming deficits.
Hitchcock, E. R., Swartz, M. T., & Cabbage, K. L. (2024). Preliminary speech perception performance profiles of school-age children with childhood apraxia of speech, speech sound disorder, and typical development. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67 (9S). 3480-3494 https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_JSLHR-22-00634
Credentials:
Hours of Operation:
Treatment locations:
Address:
,
Phone:
Email:
Overall Treatment Approach:
Percent of CAS cases:
Parent Involvement:
Community Involvement:
Professional consultation/collaboration:
Min Age Treated:
Max Age Treated:
Insurance Accepted:
