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. 2021 Dec 16;8(12):1190.
doi: 10.3390/children8121190.

The Effectiveness of an Integrated Treatment for Functional Speech Sound Disorders-A Randomized Controlled Trial

Denise I Siemons-Lühring  1 , Harald A Euler  1 , Philipp Mathmann  1 , Boris Suchan  2 , Katrin Neumann  1
Affiliations

The Effectiveness of an Integrated Treatment for Functional Speech Sound Disorders-A Randomized Controlled Trial

Denise I Siemons-Lühring et al. Children (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: The treatment of functional speech sound disorders (SSDs) in children is often lengthy, ill-defined, and without satisfactory evidence of success; effectiveness studies on SSDs are rare. This randomized controlled trial evaluates the effectiveness of the integrated SSD treatment program PhonoSens, which focuses on integrating phonological and phonetic processing according to the Integrated Psycholinguistic Model of Speech Processing (IPMSP).

Methods: Thirty-two German-speaking children aged from 3.5 to 5.5 years (median 4.6) with functional SSD were randomly assigned to a treatment or a wait-list control group with 16 children each. All children in the treatment group and, after an average waiting period of 6 months, 12 children in the control group underwent PhonoSens treatment.

Results: The treatment group showed more percent correct consonants (PCC) and a greater reduction in phonological processes after 15 therapy sessions than the wait-list control group, both with large effect sizes (Cohen's d = 0.89 and 1.04). All 28 children treated achieved normal phonological abilities: 21 before entering school and 7 during first grade. The average number of treatment sessions was 28; the average treatment duration was 11.5 months.

Conclusion: IPMSP-aligned therapy is effective in the treatment of SSD and is well adaptable for languages other than German.

Keywords: auditory feedback; children; effectiveness; functional; integrated; phonological; randomized controlled trial; speech sound disorder; therapy; treatment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PhonoSens treatment schedule with hierarchical level and instruction for individual adaptation (dashed lines) over the course of a child’s treatment.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Change in percent correctly pronounced consonants (PCC) from time point To to T1, for the mean of the treatment group and the wait-list control group (solid lines). Change of PCC scores from time point T1 to T2 for the wait-list control group after their treatment phase following the waiting phase is shown as dashed line.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Change in PCC scores for each participant from time point To to T1, for treatment group and wait-list control group; solid lines: individual scores; dashed lines: means.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Change in number of phonological processes from To to T1, for the mean of the treatment group and the wait-list control group (solid lines). Change in number of phonological processes from T1 to T2 for the wait-list control group after their treatment phase following the waiting phase is shown as dashed line.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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