title: Effectiveness of systematic articulation training program accessing computers (SATPAC) approach to remediate dentalized and interdental /s, z/: a preliminary study.
abstract: Traditional methods for treating speech distortion errors in older school-age children have tended to yield mixed success. The current study was a preliminary evaluation of an alternative approach called the Systematic Articulation Training Program Accessing Computers (SATPAC), which was tested for the remediation of /s/ and /z/. Procedures involved a sequence of phonetic placement and/or oral-motor placement cues as needed to establish the targets, followed by concentrated drill structured around a facilitating context nonsense word and then advanced to more natural contexts. Participants were 18 children aged 6 years, 9 months to 11 years, 10 months. Treatment involved once per week, individual, 10-min. sessions with an experienced speech-language pathologist. Group A (n = 9) received 15 weeks of treatment, while treatment was delayed for Group B (n = 9). Then the groups were reversed. During period one, Group A (treated) significantly improved their accuracy of /s, z/ in spontaneous speech, while Group B (untreated) showed no significant change. During period two, Group B improved significantly when treatment was applied. The majority of the participants retained proficiency two years later.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Flipsen
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sacks
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Neils-Strunjas
mesh_terms: D001184:Articulation Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D012984:Software; D013070:Speech Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D016896:Treatment Outcome