Changes in lateralized /s/ production after treatment with opti-speech visual biofeedback

Opti-Speech is a visual biofeedback software for the treatment of speech sound placement errors. It utilizes Northern Digital Wave platform for electromagnetic articulography. Opti-Speech tracks the movement of five sensors on a talker’s tongue to animate a 3D tongue avatar that moves in real time with the talker’s own tongue. The avatar is viewable from multiple angles, and virtual targets can be created to guide the participant’s speech movements. Opti-Speech has found initial success in small feasibility studies (Katz and Mehta, 2015; Vick et al., 2016). The two participants described in this study are part of a larger scale clinical trial to evaluate efficacy. Both adolescent males presented with the lateralized /s/ speech error. Their intensive biofeedback treatment schedule included two one-hour sessions per day over five sequential days. Data analyses include acoustic measures (spectral mean and kurtosis of the /s/) and trained perceptual judgments of speech sound accuracy on a 16 item probe list from baseline and across all treatment sessions. Overall impressions of the utility of this biofeedback system as a treatment tool will be discussed from the perspective of both the treating clinician and the participants.