Author(s): Sadie Hathaway, Emma Walker, Meg Singletary, Cheyenne Bolan, Alexis Klein
Mentor(s): Sandi Gillam, Ryan Sainsbury
Institution USU
Students with Speech Sound Disorders (SSDs) experience social, cognitive and academic challenges which have a compounding effect as they advance through the school years. Educators, including speech-language pathologists (SLPs), highlight the importance of homework assignments to improve outcomes in these areas for school age children. Parents of students with SSDs acknowledge the importance of home practice to achieve quicker, high-quality speech outcomes, but feel unprepared to support their child’s speech development at home effectively. Few studies show the impact of “speech” homework. The current study will fill this gap in the literature by specifically measuring the effect of homework collaboration between SLPs and parents/caregivers on speech outcomes. At Home Articulation (AHA) is an appbased program that includes a library of digital games for use in 5-minute home-practice speech sessions. SLPs assign homework (games) pertaining to the sound, word position, and complexity level to meet the student’s needs. Parents receive an email with the speech, homework assignment and instructions which allow them access to the games that are tailored to the student’s needs. The purpose of our study is to determine whether digital homework activities (AHA app) impact growth in speech sound development more significantly than standard practices for school age students with SSDs. The current study involves a sample group of 50 students ages 5-12 in the Cache County School District who meet the following criteria 1) is receiving speech therapy from an SLP in the school setting, and 2) presents with between 2 to 6 speech sound errors. The SLPs serving these students will be randomized into two groups; the treatment group (AHA) (n=25), or the control group (business as usual) (n=25). SLPs, parents, and students will then participate in the AHA intervention program assigning and completing 5-minute homework sessions 5-days per week over a 15-week period. Data will be collected using a standardized measure of speech production (Goldman Fristoe Test of Articulation-3) and baseline data probes at pre- and post-intervention periods. Results from this mixed-design study will yield observations for both individual and group changes (between treatment and control) in speech sound improvement over time. We anticipate that students whose SLPs utilize the application may make better gains in speech development than students whose SLPs are not utilizing the application.