SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY

Research for speech-language pathology

Papers a speech-language pathologist can act on — aphasia, dysphagia, developmental language, fluency, voice and augmentative communication — read in full and summarised plainly.

10,216 PAPERS · PAGE 195 OF 205 · NEWEST FIRST

• PTOTSLPCohort2026The Prevalence of Infection and Sepsis Associated Dysphagia in Hospitalised Patients: A Retrospective Cross-sectional Study.DysphagiaSepsis and infection were associated with new-onset dysphagia in hospitalised patients. Sepsis carried a higher risk than infection alone. Older patients and those with dementia, delirium or Parkinson's disease were most likely to develop swallowing difficulties during admission.
• SLPOther2026Evidence for an integrated bilingual language system from discourse tasks in aphasia.AphasiologyIn 13 bilinguals with aphasia, error types were identical in both languages, but the weaker language had more errors. Switching into the stronger language was common. This supports a shared language system where the stronger language is easier to access.
• PTOTSLPOther2026Structured modulations in high-density EMG patterns from a single muscle enable simultaneous control of natural and extra degrees of freedom.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitationHealthy adults could rotate a virtual cursor using EMG signals from a single biceps muscle while simultaneously controlling force. However, they achieved this by drastically increasing muscle activation rather than modulating neural inputs, and none could hold the rotated position for the required time.
• SLPOther2026The Link Between Syntactic Complexity and Stuttering-Like Disfluencies in French Speaking Adults.International journal of language & communication disordersIn 12 French adults who stutter, disfluencies rose with longer and more complex sentences, but the link was weak. Sentence length tracked disfluencies best. This did not test treatment.
• SLPCase Series2026Deep learning-derived measures of sound-level accuracy in primary progressive apraxia of speech: A feasibility pipeline with descriptive evidence from two cases.Clinical linguistics & phoneticsDeep learning measures of sound accuracy tracked the specific speech errors of two people with apraxia of speech. The tool distinguished between articulatory and timing subtypes in these cases, but results from delayed feedback and rate changes were inconsistent.
• OTSLPSystematic Review2026Eye-Tracking Technologies for Cognitive Assessment After Acquired Brain Injury: Systematic Review.JMIR rehabilitation and assistive technologiesEye tracking may reveal gaze differences linked to attention and executive control after acquired brain injury, but small, varied studies do not show it routinely outperforms standard cognitive tests.
• SLPSystematic Review2026Instruments for screening and assessing oral language in preschool children via digital health: a scoping review.CoDASMost digital language tools tested with young children matched in-person results, but validation was inconsistent. Teachers and community health workers screened accurately via apps, though internet limits and low specificity in some tools remain barriers to routine use.
• OTSLPQualitative2026'Give People More Time and Take the Time to Explain Things Properly': Cervical Screening Experiences of People With Intellectual Disability.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDWomen with intellectual disability described cervical screening as traumatic when rushed or explained poorly. They identified clear enablers: adequate appointment time, plain language explanations, and the ability to choose support people. These factors directly influenced whether they engaged with screening.
• SLPOther2026Language Subdomains in Children on the Autism Spectrum: Cross-Sectional Study of Morphologically Rich Language.Folia phoniatrica et logopaedica : official organ of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP)When matched on vocabulary, children on the autism spectrum did not differ from typically developing children on grammar scores. Vocabulary and grammar rose together in both groups, and vocabulary age was about 2 to 3 months ahead of morphology age.
• SLPCohort2026Personality disorder diagnoses in UK Autistic people: Evidence from a matched cohort study.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutistic adults are significantly more likely to receive personality disorder diagnoses than non-Autistic people. This risk is highest for Autistic women, especially those with intellectual disability, where new diagnoses were over eight times more likely.
• SLPPilot2026Beyond the Moment: How EMA Reporting Periods Affect Sampled Situations and Sensitivity to Hearing Aid Differences.Trends in hearingAsking hearing aid users to recall the worst listening experience from the past 30 minutes revealed clear preferences for advanced features. Strictly momentary surveys showed no difference between basic and advanced programs. Retrospective sampling captures challenging situations that momentary prompts miss.
• SLPOther2026Psychometric Validation of the Chinese Versions of the Effort Assessment Scale and Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale for Adults-10 for Assessing Listening Effort and Fatigue.Ear and hearingChinese-speaking adults reported listening effort and fatigue consistently with brief scales. Higher scores tracked worse hearing and tinnitus in unaided bilateral loss. Use them as self-report totals, not proof that treatment reduces effort.
• PTOTSLPSystematic Review2026Socio-Ecological Factors of Physical Activity in Children and Adolescents With Down Syndrome: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDRPhysical activity barriers in children with Down syndrome are multi-level, not just individual. Parents cited overprotection and lack of time, while communities lacked trained coaches. Siblings and peers acted as key motivators. Interventions must address these social and structural gaps.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2026How does 'autistic burnout' feel? A qualitative study exploring experiences of earlier and later-diagnosed autistic adults.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutistic adults described burnout as a simultaneous powering down and overactivation of the mind and body. They reported exhaustion, loss of skills like speech and planning, and heightened sensory pain. Later-diagnosed participants faced greater distress from not knowing why they were struggling.
• PTOTSLPQualitative2026Defining Transition and Transition Success: Perspectives From Different Stakeholders.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDYoung people with intellectual disabilities defined successful transition as gaining independence, responsibility, and social connections, similar to peers without disabilities. Parents and special school teachers viewed it as uniquely difficult, focusing on protection and employment. Services must support community inclusion and skill building earlier, not just job placement.
• SLPOther2026Investigating Communication Support Strategies as 'Micro-Interventions': A Conceptual-Methodological Framework Applying Realist Evaluation and Relevance Theory.International journal of language & communication disordersNo clinical finding is available: this paper proposes a theoretical framework for studying communication support strategies but reports no participants, methods, or results.
• SLPQualitative2026Student Reflections in Simulated Speech and Language Therapy Placements Using Telehealth and In-Person Formats: A Qualitative Study.International journal of language & communication disordersSLT students reflected on the same five learning themes after the first day of telehealth and in-person simulated placements: client-centred communication, emotions, collaboration, learning from others and therapeutic approaches. Format-specific concerns were masks and documentation in person, video calls and time management online.
• SLPOther2026Assessing Visual Contributions to the Perception of Speech in Noise.Trends in hearingLooking at a talker's face helped young normal-hearing adults hear speech in noise, with thresholds 5.4 dB SNR better. A frozen video still helped by 1.9 dB, so visual timing may aid tracking the talker.
• SLPCohort2026Receptive-Expressive Language Phenotypes in Infants and Toddlers With Autism Features.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAmong infants and toddlers with autism symptoms, over 75% had an atypical receptive-expressive language profile. Children whose expressive language was relatively stronger than receptive language showed slower expressive growth, while other developmental features did not separate the groups.
• SLPCase-Control2026Automated Creak Detection in Spanish Speakers with and without AdLD.Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice FoundationAutomated creak percentage was higher in Spanish-speaking individuals with adductor-subtype laryngeal dystonia than controls and glottic insufficiency. It was better at identifying people without dystonia than at finding people with dystonia.
• OTSLPQualitative2026Barriers and Innovations Towards Accessing an Autism Diagnosis in Rural Northern Ontario: A Qualitative Study.Child: care, health and developmentFamilies and clinicians in rural Northern Ontario described autism diagnosis delays from low autism awareness, confusing referral systems, travel and technology limits, and staffing shortages. Shared information, community visits and culturally responsive assessment were described as facilitating access.
• SLPOther2026Expanding the Evidence-base for Clinician-Graded Dysphagia Using Dynamic Imaging Grade of Swallowing Toxicity (DIGEST): Validation Across Non-head and Neck Cancer Oncology Populations.DysphagiaTwo SLPs grading the same videofluoroscopy studies independently agreed closely across 386 patients with cancer outside the head and neck, and every step up the DIGEST scale tracked a worse pharyngeal impairment score. Correlations with patient-reported swallowing were weaker than hypothesised.
• SLPOther2026Mapping the DIGEST Decision Tree to the IDDSI Framework to Promote Reproducibility and Global Implementation.DysphagiaDIGEST's developers have relabelled the food and drink consistencies in its decision tree using IDDSI levels. This is a terminology mapping for people using both tools, not a study: no patients, no outcomes, no data.
• SLPOther2026Sweet-Spot Compression: An Amplification Strategy for Improving Listening Outcomes at Moderate to High Levels.Trends in hearingAn experimental hearing aid setting that holds back gain for loud speech improved speech understanding in noise. At the highest speech level tested, scores were 8.1% better than with a standard fitting, and 10 of 17 participants preferred it in every condition.
• SLPCohort2026Cognitive Shifting Ability Does Not Predict Self-Perceived Hearing Difficulties in Adult Hearing-Aid Users.Trends in hearingIn 203 adult hearing-aid users, being able to switch between tasks did not explain how much trouble they reported hearing. More hearing loss and less education went with more reported difficulty.
• SLPCase-Control2026Reduced task adaptation and contextual awareness in autistic adults during facial emotion recognition: evidence from mixed-effects modeling and automated facial analysis.Molecular autismAutistic adults recognised facial emotions less accurately than non-autistic adults (80.85% vs 87.82%) and improved less as the task went on. They also gained less than non-autistic adults when the correct answer stood out more clearly from the other two options.
• OTSLPQualitative2026Emphasising Learning in Health Promotion Targeting Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDRPeople with intellectual disabilities and those supporting them said three things matter: being helped to understand their health choices, being listened to in a way that fits them, and having activity built into the day. Staff knowledge and service rules decide whether it happens.
• OTSLPQualitative2026Good intentions are not enough: Autistic perspectives on structural ableism within the walls of our classrooms.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutistic students said what stopped them speaking up at school was not their own lack of skill but the system: autism erased from lessons, inflexible staff, punishment for being different, isolation, hidden rules and top-down authority. Teaching self-advocacy alone will not fix that.
• SLPPilot2026Machine learning-enhanced behavioural approach to detecting reactions to sound in infants and toddlers: proof-of-concept study.International journal of audiologyWhen the algorithm decided which side a sound came from, it was usually right, but it decided in only 7% to 17% of cases. Infant head turns alone were not significantly better than guessing.
• SLPQualitative2026Qualitative Insights on Preventive Group Training in LTC Facilities: Key Influencing Factors.International journal of language & communication disordersFour speech therapists running preventive groups in care homes said sessions lived or died on groundwork: staff expecting them, residents having been told, a warm and available room. Of all the competencies they described, reflecting on their own practice came up most.
• OTSLPSystematic Review2026Key Factors for Quality End-of-Life Care for People With Intellectual Disabilities. A Critical Interpretive Synthesis Review Using a 'Best-Fit' Framework Approach.Journal of applied research in intellectual disabilities : JARIDAcross the literature, quality end-of-life care for people with intellectual disabilities comes down to three things: care built around the person's own wishes, a network of staff, family and friends working together, and an organisation with the training, equipment and leadership to support them.
• SLPCohort2026Pediatric CI 3-60 Guideline: When to Refer Children for a Cochlear Implant Candidacy Evaluation.Ear and hearingRefer a child for cochlear implant candidacy evaluation when the unaided four-frequency average is 60 dB HL or worse, aided SII is 0.60 or lower, or aided word recognition is 60% or poorer. At least 94% of ears recommended for implantation met one of these.
• SLPRCT2026Optimizing Sound Quality Improves Hearing Aid Users' Moods and Listening-Related Fatigue.Trends in hearingWhen hearing aids were set to the sound quality people liked best, their daily mood was better and their listening fatigue lower than with a merely tolerable setting. The benefit showed up only in the participants who still preferred that setting at home.
• SLPQualitative2026'Team Speech Sounds'-How Speech and Language Therapists Work With Parents of Young Children With Speech Sound Disorder: A Focus Group Study.International journal of language & communication disordersTherapists said the relationship with the parent is what makes home practice happen: setting expectations early, watching parents practise and giving feedback. Time and service limits get in the way, and many avoid watching or filming parents for fear of making them feel judged.
• SLPOther2026A Binaural Front End for Speech Intelligibility Models: Application to the Hearing-Aid Speech Perception Index (HASPI).Trends in hearingNot a clinical study. The paper builds and tests a signal-processing component for a computer model that predicts speech understanding in noise, checked against previously published headphone measurements from normal-hearing listeners.
• PTSLPQualitative2026Exploring the Barriers and Facilitators to Physical Activity Behaviour in Older Adults With Intellectual Disabilities: Lessons From and for a Co-Design Study.Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDROlder adults with intellectual disabilities in one care home said pain, fear of falling and past bad experiences stopped them moving. What helped was doing activity with someone else, encouragement and compliments, and activities matched to their interests rather than being told to exercise.
• SLPOther2026Visual Implicit Learning and Speech Recognition in Adult Post-Lingual Cochlear Implant Users.Trends in hearingPost-lingual adult cochlear implant users picked up visual patterns about as well as hearing adults. Those who did it better understood sentences and words in background noise more accurately, but the study cannot show that improving this skill would help.
• SLPOther2026What About Foods? The Influence of Food Texture on the Safety, Timing, Kinematics, and Efficiency of Pharyngeal Phase Swallowing in Healthy Adults.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRTexture slowed food's path to the upper swallowing sphincter only when timing started at the hyoid burst. Started from when food gathered in the throat, texture made no difference. Soft and bite-sized food left least residue; a cracker left most. 20 healthy adults.
• SLPSystematic Review2026The Impact of Nasogastric Tubes (NGTs) on Swallow Function in Adults with Post-stroke Dysphagia: A Systematic Review.DysphagiaStroke survivors with dysphagia may swallow worse while a nasogastric tube is in place, with longer pharyngeal transit, more penetration or aspiration, and more residue, but no change in oral transit. Seven of the eight studies were at moderate to high risk of bias.
• SLPOther2026Assessment of Hyoid Bone Movement by Simultaneous Ultrasound and Videofluoroscopic Imaging.DysphagiaHandheld submental ultrasound tracked the hyoid through swallowing and, once the probe's own movement was corrected frame by frame, matched simultaneous videofluoroscopy closely. Correcting only for the starting angle did not. Uncorrected probe movement alone adds an estimated 0.37 cm of error.
• SLPCohort2026The Relation of Home Literacy Environment to Brain Specialization and Sensitivity for Phonological and Semantic Processing of Spoken Words.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRHome reading environment showed no strong link to how children's brains divided the work of processing sounds and word meanings. In older children only, being read to more often went with a stronger response when word pairs were only loosely related in meaning.
• SLPSurvey2026Analyzing the Attitudes of Teachers in Spain Toward Stuttering.International journal of language & communication disordersTeachers in Spain scored better on stuttering attitudes than the worldwide average, but many still blamed trauma, learning or illness for stuttering and rarely named genetics as a cause. Training and experience with students who stutter went together with better scores.
• SLPPilot2026A Customised, Intensive Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Children With Down Syndrome: Findings From a Real-World Pilot Effectiveness Study.International journal of language & communication disordersParents of young children with Down syndrome learned most of the programme's interaction and signing strategies to its accuracy targets in about 11 weeks of coaching, but used them more often only slightly, and children's language gains cannot be attributed to the programme.
• SLPCohort2026Parenting Stress and Stressful Life Events Among Caregivers of Toddler Siblings of Autistic and Non-Autistic Children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchCaregivers of toddlers who have an autistic older sibling reported more parenting stress than caregivers of toddlers with only non-autistic siblings, and more stressful life events since the toddler's birth. Differences were moderate, and the life-event finding comes from just 47 caregivers.
• SLPSystematic Review2026Outcomes of Voice Therapy in Behavioral Voice Disorders: A Scoping Review-Part A.Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice FoundationAcross 438 studies of voice therapy for adults with behavioral voice disorders, the measures used most were vocal complaint, laryngeal imaging, self-assessment, acoustic analysis and auditory-perceptual judgment. Aerodynamic testing appeared in only 174 of them, and the authors say the field's assessment habits have barely changed in twenty years.
• SLPOther2026Measuring Spectrotemporal Sensitivity in Cochlear Implant Users With a Reaction-Time Paradigm: A Comparison of Two Implementations.Trends in hearingCochlear implant users' reaction times to a change in an ongoing noise were reproducible across a phone app and a lab laptop 2 to 3 months apart. Faster responses went with better speech-in-noise scores. The app is not yet ready for clinic use.
• SLPSystematic Review2026Speech-language-hearing interventions in orofacial functions in individuals with Down syndrome: a scoping review.CoDASTen small studies, most without a control group, suggest speech-language therapy for orofacial function in people with Down syndrome can improve sucking, chewing and swallowing. The single breathing study found only a marginal effect on sleep apnoea, and the speech results were mixed.
• SLPCohort2026Individual, occupational, and dysphonia-related factors in operational and administrative military police officers.CoDASOperational and administrative military police reported hoarseness, vocal effort and voice-related absence at similar rates, and about 9% of all officers screened as likely to have dysphonia. Operational work meant more noise, more threats and less support at work.
• SLPCohort2026Nutritional and speech therapy guidance for the introduction of foods in infants: dietary profile and risk of pediatric feeding disorder.CoDASInfants whose caregivers got joint nutrition and speech therapy guidance on starting solids had more varied diets, ate less ultra-processed food, and screened at lower risk of a feeding disorder than those who did not. Both groups grew normally. This snapshot cannot show cause.
• SLPOther2026Visual Gestures of the Head and Eyebrows Support Prosody Perception for Individuals with Cochlear Implants.Trends in hearingHead nods and eyebrow raises on one word made listeners echo that word in a higher pitch even when the voice carried no emphasis. Cochlear implant users leaned on those gestures more: 37% versus 15% of a real pitch peak's effect.