Retroflex Versus Bunched in Treatment for Rhotic Misarticulation (Byun et al., 2014)

Purpose To document the efficacy of ultrasound biofeedback treatment for misarticulation of the North American English rhotic in children. Because of limited progress in the first cohort, a series of two closely related studies was conducted in place of a single study. The studies differed primarily in the nature of tongue-shape targets (e.g., retroflex, bunched) cued during treatment.

Method Eight participants received 8 weeks of individual ultrasound biofeedback treatment targeting rhotics. In Study 1, all 4 participants were cued to match a bunched tongue-shape target. In Study 2, participants received individualized cues aimed at eliciting the tongue shape most facilitative of perceptually correct rhotics.

Results Participants in Study 1 showed only minimal treatment effects. In Study 2, all participants demonstrated improved production of rhotics in untreated words produced without biofeedback, with large to very large effect sizes.

Conclusions The results of Study 2 indicate that with proper parameters of treatment, ultrasound biofeedback can be a highly effective intervention for children with persistent rhotic errors. In addition, qualitative comparison of Studies 1 and 2 suggests that treatment for the North American English rhotic should include opportunities to explore different tongue shapes, to find the most facilitative variant for each individual speaker.

目的在于记录超声生物反馈治疗北美英语儿童齿龈音误发的有效性。鉴于第一队列进展有限，以单一研究替代，开展了两个紧密相关的研究。这两个研究在治疗过程中舌形目标（例如，卷舌，紧缩）的性质上存在主要差异。方法：八名参与者接受了为期8周的个体超声生物反馈治疗，针对齿龈音。在研究1中，所有4名参与者均被提示匹配紧缩的舌形目标。在研究2中，参与者接受了旨在引发最有利于感知正确齿龈音的舌形的个性化提示。结果：研究1中的参与者仅显示出微小的治疗效果。在研究2中，所有参与者未经生物反馈治疗的无提示单词齿龈音产出均表现出显著的改进，效果量大小为大型至极大型。结论：研究2的结果表明，在适当的参数设置下，超声生物反馈可以成为针对持续存在齿龈音错误的儿童的极为有效的干预措施。此外，对研究1和研究2的定性比较表明，针对北美英语齿龈音的治疗应包括探索不同舌形的机遇，以找到适合每位发言者的最有效变体。