Beatboxing and Residual Speech Errors

The Impact of Beatboxing on the Management of Individuals With Residual Speech Errors

This project will study the effect of practicing speech sounds via beatboxing on speech accuracy, engagement in therapy, and functional outcomes for older children and adolescents with speech sound disorders (SSDs). Though SSDs exhibited by young children are often considered, SSDs are among the most frequent communication disorders in school-aged and adolescent children. SSDs can persist until adulthood. Individuals exhibit residual speech errors (RSE) when speech sounds are produced incorrectly after the age of eight, the age at which speech production is expected to be error-free. Common RSE include /r/, /s/, and /z/, all of which have high frequency in American English.

Beatboxing is a unique manipulation of the speech mechanism in which the individual creates repetitive, percussive and other instrumental sounds by actually being the instrument. Beatboxing is engaging and increasingly found in a variety of musical contexts and mainstream culture. The broad objective of this investigation is to explore the impact of beatboxing as an intervention tool on the speech produced and the functional outcomes attained by children with RSE compared to a traditional articulation therapy approach.The effect of a beatboxing intervention approach (BEAT-Speech) will be compared to traditional articulation therapy and employs a two-group pretest-posttest design. Specifically, the research aims to 1) assess the impact of beatboxing on speech sound production accuracy and amount of targets produced during therapy; 2) examine the relative level of client engagement of individuals exposed to beatboxing intervention; and 3) explore influences of beatboxing experiences on communication, activities, and participation in social and daily interactions.

Study Overview

• Status: Withdrawn
• Conditions: Speech Sound Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: BEAT-Speech; Behavioral: Traditional Articulation Approach

• Study Type: Interventional
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Heather L Rusiewicz, Ph.D.; Phone Number: 412-396-4205; Email: rusiewih@duq.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 8 years to 16 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• diagnosed with a speech sound disorder due to residual speech sound errors

Exclusion Criteria:

• out of age range
• history of hearing, neurogenic, behavioral diagnoses that can contribute to speech disorder
• English is not first or preferred language
• concurrent treatment for speech goals

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Beatboxing: BEAT-Speech	Behavioral: BEAT-Speech; BEAT-Speech integrates beatboxing techniques within speech-therapy services for individuals with speech sound disorders.
Experimental: Traditional Articulation Approach	Behavioral: Traditional Articulation Approach; The traditional approach to treating speech sound disorders focus on one or two sounds at a time until they are mastered by the client. Perceptual and production training are used with target starting at simple (isolation) and moving to more complex (sentences). A variety of cues such as shaping and phonetic placement cues are used.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Speech sound accuracy: dichotomous ratings	rated by naive, blinded raters	within two years
Speech sound accuracy: visual analog scale ratings	rated by naive, blinded raters, will mark accuracy on a scale from 0-100 mm (not at all accurate to completely accurate). There is no formal name to this scale at this time given that it is novel to the study.	within two years
Phonetic accuracy	% of consonants correct determined by phonetic transcription completed by trained transcribers	within two years

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
therapeutic engagement level	measured via clinician ratings and naive, blinded raters who will code nonverbal behaviors associated with engagement/disengagement	within two years
Hopkins Rehabilitation Engagement Rating	five item quantitative questionnaire completed by instructors only after final session	within two years
Pittsburgh Rehabilitation Rating Scale	single item questionnaire completed by instructors after each treatment session	within two years
PROMIS (Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System) Pediatric Peer Relationship Scale	questionnaire completed by participants to assess impact of treatment on social activities and participation. Scale is from 0-4 which is from worse to best outcome.	within two years
Adolescent Communication Questionnaire	assesses self-efficacy/individual's belief in their ability to make change and succeed in therapy. Scale is fro 1 to 5 with the lowest number being associated with the greatest amount of negative impact to the highest number being associated with no impact.	within two years
Qualitative interview regarding functional outcomes	phenomenological approach to better understanding themes associated with this novel therapy approach and traditional therapy approach	within two years

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Duquesne University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Anticipated): May 5, 2024
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): September 15, 2025
• Study Completion (Anticipated): December 15, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 27, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 31, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): June 3, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): March 10, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 8, 2023
• Last Verified: March 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Communication Disorders; Speech Sound Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: DuquesneR21MusicHealth

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No