SPEAKSpeech Supplementation for Children with Cerebral Palsy

This study focuses on improving communication abilities in children with cerebral palsy who have difficulty being understood when they speak, a condition known as dysarthria. It aims to test a communication method called speech supplementation, which can help make speech clearer and easier to understand. The study will include 100 children with cerebral palsy, teaching them to use a communication board to point to the first letter of each word or relevant pictures while speaking. This approach can help listeners better understand what the children are saying, which is crucial for their social interactions and learning. Participants in the study will first record 60 sentences to establish a baseline of their usual speech. They will then receive one-on-one training to learn the speech supplementation technique. Once they have mastered it, they will record the same sentences using the new method. These recordings will be evaluated by two groups of listeners. The first group will transcribe the sentences to see how many words they can correctly identify, while the second group will rate how understandable the speech is on a scale. Comparing the results from before and after the intervention will show how effective the speech supplementation is in improving clarity. This could lead to better communication strategies for children with speech difficulties.