Reliability of Scoring Telehealth Speech Sound Assessments Administered in Real-World Scenarios

Purpose: This study aimed to determine whether articulation assessment via telepractice is as reliable as in-person assessment. Method: Thirty-four children aged 4–11 years with speech sound disorder (SSD) participated in the study. The Articulation Subtest (SET) of the Turkish Articulation and Phonology Test (SST) was used to assess the children's articulation skills. The study's procedures comprised two stages. First, in the Baseline Pilot Stage, five speech-language pathologists (SLPs; four graduate SLPs and one SLP with a PhD degree) conducted in-person assessments on seven children, and their agreement was examined (α for five SLPs = .950; p < .0001). In the Main Assessment Stage, four SLPs assessed 27 children synchronously on four separate days through either online (two SLPs) or in-person (the other two SLPs) clinician roles, which changed daily. Online evaluators did not use microphones and headphones to avoid any advantage. The agreement among the four raters was examined by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient. Results: The results revealed an excellent level of agreement regarding overall assessment between online and in-person clinicians ( p < .0001). All articulation manners were acceptable, good, or excellent. However, some sounds' (α < .7 for /d/, /ɣ/, /b/; α < .8 for /p/, /ʃ/, /t/, /l/, /v/) reliability levels were relatively low compared with others. Conclusions: There may be certain restrictiveness regarding discriminating visual or auditory clues related to certain phonemes in a telepractice environment. This restrictiveness may be related with sonority and with differentiation between minimal pairs where visual clues are limited.

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Is Articulation Assessment via Synchronous Telepractice as Reliable as In-Person Assessment?

Bartamay

Cangi

Baba

et al. 2023

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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Recast Therapy for Treating Syntax in Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Feasibility and Early Efficacy Study Examining the Role of Language of Intervention on Outcomes

Castilla-Earls

Horne

2023

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the feasibility of the delivery of complex syntax recast therapy via telepractice to Spanish–English bilingual children and provide preliminary evidence of the efficacy of this approach. Method: Fifteen bilingual children with developmental language disorders were stratified based on language proficiency and randomized to one of three treatment conditions: Spanish only ( n = 5), English only ( n = 6), or Spanish + English ( n = 4). Using a within-subject design, we hypothesized that we could document treatment efficacy based on change in the treated structure in the absence of change in an untreated comparison structure. All 15 children completed ~16 hr of treatment via telepractice and participated in pre- and posttesting of their production of conditional adverbs (treated structure) and subject relative clauses (untreated structure) carried out by a masked assessor. Results: Analyses included all participants. Treatment fidelity was high, and participant attendance was remarkable, indicating feasibility. Regarding efficacy, recast therapy led to group-level gains on treated syntactic structures that exceeded those observed for the untreated comparison structure. For the 11 children who received therapy in only one language, approximately equal gains were observed in both the treated and untreated languages for conditional adverbials. Conclusions: Preliminary evidence suggests that for highly overlapping structures like conditional adverbials, recast therapy is effective and leads to change in both of the child's languages. Larger studies are required to understand how language of administration and proficiency may affect outcomes. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23739996

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Virtual Post-Intervention Speech and Language Assessment of Toddler and Preschool Participants in Babble Boot Camp

Potter,

VanDam,

Bruce

et al. 2024

J Speech Lang Hear Res

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Purpose: Babble Boot Camp (BBC) is a parent-implemented telepractice intervention for infants at risk for speech and language disorders. BBC uses a teach–model–coach–review approach, delivered through weekly 15-min virtual meetings with a speech-language pathologist. We discuss accommodations needed for successful virtual follow-up test administration and preliminary assessment outcomes for children with classic galactosemia (CG) and controls at age 2.5 years. Method: This clinical trial included 54 participants, 16 children with CG receiving BBC speech-language intervention from infancy, age 2 years, five children receiving sensorimotor intervention from infancy and changing to speech-language intervention at 15 months until 2 years of age, seven controls with CG, and 26 typically developing controls. The participants' language and articulation were assessed via telehealth at age 2.5 years. Results: The Preschool Language Scale–Fifth Edition (PLS-5) was successfully administered with specific parent instruction and manipulatives assembled from the child's home. The GFTA-3 was successfully administered to all but three children who did not complete this assessment due to limited expressive vocabularies. Referrals for continued speech therapy based on PLS-5 and GFTA-3 scores were made for 16% of children who received BBC intervention from infancy as compared to 40% and 57% of children who began BBC at 15 months of age or did not receive BBC intervention, respectively. Conclusions: With extended time and accommodations from the standardized administration guidelines, virtual assessment of speech and language was possible. However, given the inherent challenges of testing very young children virtually, in-person assessment is recommended, when possible, for outcome measurements.

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Reliability of Scoring Telehealth Speech Sound Assessments Administered in Real-World Scenarios

Cited by 9 publications

References 46 publications

Is Articulation Assessment via Synchronous Telepractice as Reliable as In-Person Assessment?

Is Articulation Assessment via Synchronous Telepractice as Reliable as In-Person Assessment?

Recast Therapy for Treating Syntax in Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder: A Feasibility and Early Efficacy Study Examining the Role of Language of Intervention on Outcomes

Virtual Post-Intervention Speech and Language Assessment of Toddler and Preschool Participants in Babble Boot Camp

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