Objectives: With the COVID-19 pandemic, telepractice became a great option in speech-language therapy services, as in many healthcare utilities. However, the transition to this service model did not occur at a similar rate for every clinician. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the experiences, preferences and factors affecting the acceptance of speech-language therapists (SLT) regarding telepractice in Turkey.
Methods: Sixty-seven SLTs were presented with a questionnaire that addressed the professional tendencies, experiences and views on telepractice of them. Descriptive statistics regarding the preferences and experiences of SLTs were calculated. Moreover, factors that might be related to the number of sessions they held at the pandemic were examined with the Chi-squared test.
Results: The speech-language disorders that SLTs find the most suitable for telepractice were fluency disorders, voice disorders and speech sound disorders. Groups that SLTs deemed most suitable for receiving telepractice in terms of age were 12-21, 22-64 and 7-11, respectively. A significant relationship was found between the frequency of online meetings and telepractice sessions before the pandemic and the number of sessions during the pandemic. Furthermore, a significant relationship also was found between satisfaction with using clinician skills in telepractice and the number of telepractice sessions during the pandemic.
Conclusions: The importance of the first experiences of SLTs in the acceptance of the delivery method emerged. The necessity of in-service trainings and exemplary models to improve attitudes emerged. With these trainings, ensuring security, standardizing practices and increasing qualified services will be provided as well.
Objectives: One of the main prosodic components of language is the rate. Speaking and articulation rates are two different measurements that reflect various aspects of each other. This study mainly aimed to present preliminary normative data related to speaking rate, reading rate, articulation rate and articulation rate in reading for Turkish-speaking adults and also aimed to compare these four measurements in terms of gender. Methods: The present study included 84 university students (42 males and 42 females) aged between 19-24 years old whose native language was Turkish. Power analysis was calculated based on the articulation rate. Speech and articulation rates were measured by taking 400-syllable conversational speech samples from each participant. A text was used from the Adult II section of the Turkish version of the Stanford Binet Intelligence Test to measure their reading rates. The speaking and reading samples obtained were recorded with a voice recorder and analyzed with the PRAAT software. Results: There was a statistically significant difference both between their speaking and reading rates, and between articulation rate and articulation rate in reading. Male participants had significantly higher articulation rates in speaking and reading than females. Conclusion: The present study provided evidence that the speech rate is low and articulation rate is high in Turkish. It concluded that the significant difference between articulation rates by gender in many languages is also valid for Turkish.
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