Browsing by Subject "Äännekoulu"

Objective. Speech sound errors are the most common speech disorders in children that, without proper treatment, can have far-reaching effects on an individual’s quality of life. Due to limited speech therapy resources, speech sound disorders are often left without adequate treatment. In Finland, efforts have been made to reduce the geographical inequality in the availability of rehabilitation services through various time-independent teletherapy solutions. For example, the mission of Äännekoulu is to help Finnish municipalities prioritize their limited resources and enable every child to have access to speech therapy services, regardless of their place of residence. There are only few studies focusing on the use of teletherapy practicies in the treatment of speech sound disorders in Finnish-speaking children. The aim of this study was to examine whether Äännekoulu’s online therapy is an effective way to rehabilitate children's /r/-errors and to describe possible factors influencing rehabilitation results. Methods. The data used in the study consisted of demographic information and speech therapist’s notes and records on children under 10 years of age (n = 109) who participated in a three-month training period at Äännekoulu’s online therapy aiming to rehabilitate existing /r/-errors in their speech during March 2019 - April 2020. The notes and records were collected from the patient database Diarium. Participation in the study was voluntary. The collected data were categorized and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and the chi-square test. Results and conclusions. More than half of the children learned to produce alveolar trill /r/ at least in isolation during a training period at Äännekoulu’s online therapy. On average children learned to produce the tongue trill on the sixth contact with the speech therapist. Most of the children learned to produce tongue trill through the dn dn dn -exercise. There was no significant difference between sexes in learning to produce the alveolar trill. The quality and the type of the speech sound error, age, sex or the children’s skill level in the beginning of the training period did not affect the rehabilitation of /r/-error. The number of contacts with the speech therapist strongly correlated with the results achieved in teletherapy. Äännekoulu’s online therapy seems to be an effective way to treat children’s /r/-errors. Learning to produce the alveolar trill correctly is significantly affected by active collaboration with the speech therapist. Further research is needed to identify the factors influencing the rehabilitation of the /r/-errors. Future research should also concentrate on the at home practice needed to treat speech sound errors in teletherapy.