Advances in Communication and Swallowing

This article aims to explore /r/ therapy and the need for an evidence base when choosing which tongue shape to teach in remediation. It also aims to explore specifically Irish-English aspects of /r/ and intervention for /r/ errors.

We critically appraise the claim that there are separate consonantal and vocalic /r/s in rhotic accents (over and above the rhotic vowels). We describe the various tongue shapes speakers can adopt to produce the percept of /r/. The implications for therapy of the different tongue shapes are highlighted, and the need for an evidence base emphasized. The small number of studies (instrumental and non-instrumental) that have looked at therapy with /r/ and which have mentioned tongue shape are reviewed. We then describe a pilot study of 200 speech language pathologists that surveyed a range of information about the therapists, the clients, and the tongue shape in therapy for /r/ together with comparative success rates.

The results of the survey demonstrate considerable differences in terms of tongue shape used in therapy and probable difficulties encountered by the respondents in describing /r/ errors. However, several limitations to the survey reported here became obvious.

We conclude with an examination of tongue shape used in Irish English and the responses to the survey by speech language pathologists based in Ireland. The need for a revised survey of a greater number of SLTs is highlighted.

The aim of the study was to characterize the experiences of parents whose children have been diagnosed with deafness in Ireland. This is relevant for future planning and development of the professions related to audiology.

The researchers analyzed 16 letters to the Health Services Executive (HSE) National Audiology Review Group (NARG), which voice the experiences of parents with deaf children. These invited letters are in the public domain and available in Appendix A of the NARG report. Specifically, the researchers analyzed these letters using the psychological phenomenological approach.

Phenomenological analysis highlighted a range of parental experiences in relation to their children’s deafness. Although some parents reported their experiences of being supported, coping, resilience and resourcefulness, most expressed anger, resentment and bitterness towards inefficient diagnostic processes, dissatisfaction with services, and inadequate information and counselling in relation to options and prognosis. In many cases, parents expressed loneliness, uncertainty, and a fear of an unsure future for their child.

Parents believed that a great deal of change was necessary to instil confidence and satisfaction in the Irish audiology service.

To investigate the impact of the phonetic content of two sentence sets on speech outcomes, specifically the effects of nasal phonemes.

Audio-video recordings of a consecutive series of 15 participants (age range 4–22 years), with cleft palate (syndromic or non-syndromic), with and without velopharyngeal dysfunction were taken. Participants repeated Sentence Set 1 (with nasals across sentences) and Sentence Set 2 (without nasals except the three nasal target sentences) during a routine speech recording. Two experienced Specialist Speech and Language Therapists, blinded to the study’s purpose, analyzed participants’ speech using the Cleft Audit Protocol for Speech-Augmented (CAPS-A). On day 1, recordings included Sentence Set 1. On day 2, 23 days later, recordings included Sentence Set 2.

The difference between Sentence Set 1 and Sentence Set 2 ‘total scores’ (sum of scores on all CAPS-A parameters) was significant. The Pearson Product Moment showed high correlation. A Wilcoxon test revealed a significant difference between Sets 1 and 2 on the hypernasality parameter, and this alone accounted for the significant difference in total scores.

The inclusion or exclusion of nasal consonants in the sentence set significantly affected perceptual ratings of hypernasality but none of the other CAPS-A parameters, highlighting the need for further investigation into perceptual nasality ratings.