International journal of language & communication disorders
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Many speech and language therapists (SLTs) work with patients who have a tracheostomy. There is limited information about their working practices and the extent to which recent publications and research have influenced the speech and language therapy management of the tracheostomized patient. ⋯ SLTs in the UK provide a moderate to high level of consistent practice in tracheostomy management. This study identifies areas of tracheostomy management that require further research in order to establish clinical practice guidelines and to address discrepancies between research evidence and clinical implementation.
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Int J Lang Commun Disord · Jan 2014
Story retelling by bilingual children with language impairments and typically developing controls.
To date there is limited information documenting growth patterns in the narratives of bilingual children with and without primary language impairment (PLI). ⋯ TD and PLI children differed in the development of narrative macro- and microstructure between kindergarten and first grade. The TD bilinguals transferred conceptually dependent narrative skills easily, but then had to learn independently the nuances of each language to be successful using literate language. Because most children with PLI need more exposure to establish strong connections between their L1 and L2, they had more difficulty transferring their knowledge of literate language forms from one language to another.
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Int J Lang Commun Disord · Sep 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialUsing computers to enable self-management of aphasia therapy exercises for word finding: the patient and carer perspective.
Speech and language therapy (SLT) for aphasia can be difficult to access in the later stages of stroke recovery, despite evidence of continued improvement with sufficient therapeutic intensity. Computerized aphasia therapy has been reported to be useful for independent language practice, providing new opportunities for continued rehabilitation. The success of this option depends on its acceptability to patients and carers. ⋯ Independent computerized aphasia therapy is acceptable to stroke survivors. Acceptability can be maximized by tailoring exercises to personal interests of the individual, ensuring access to support and giving consideration to fatigue and life style when recommending practice schedules.
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Int J Lang Commun Disord · Sep 2013
Clinical markers in Italian-speaking children with and without specific language impairment: a study of non-word and real word repetition as predictors of grammatical ability.
In many languages a weakness in non-word repetition serves as a useful clinical marker of specific language impairment (SLI) in children. However, recent work in Italian has shown that the repetition of real words may also have clinical utility. For young typically developing Italian children, real word repetition is more predictive of particular grammatical abilities than is non-word repetition. This finding is important because these particular grammatical abilities--the production of present-tense third-person plural inflections and direct-object clitic pronouns--are precisely those that are problematic for Italian-speaking children with SLI. Along with their grammatical requirements, these two morpheme types present a significant phonological/prosodic challenge for these children. ⋯ It is argued that in Italian SLI, the grammatical details showing the greatest weakness present phonological/prosodic obstacles as well as grammatical challenges to these children. Consequently, non-word repetition emerges as a predictor of these grammatical weaknesses in SLI, unlike the profile observed in typically developing Italian children.
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Int J Lang Commun Disord · Jul 2013
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyA randomized, rater-blinded, parallel trial of intensive speech therapy in sub-acute post-stroke aphasia: the SP-I-R-IT study.
There is conflicting evidence regarding the benefits of intensive speech and language therapy (SLT), particularly because intensity is often confounded with total SLT provided. ⋯ This study suggests that, in the sub-acute period following stroke and controlling for the number of hours of SLT provided, there is a trend for a greater improvement in language and functional communication measures with IT compared with RT. The lack of statistical significance in results was probably due to the small sample size.