Tongue shapes for rhotics in school-age children with and without residual speech errors.
Jonathan L Preston, Patricia McCabe, Mark Tiede and 1 others
PMID 30199271WHAT IT FOUND
Children with residual speech errors produced rhotics with simpler tongue shapes than typical speakers.
After seven hours of ultrasound biofeedback therapy, their tongue complexity increased and listeners rated their rhotics as more accurate. Complexity scores correlated with perceived accuracy.
Key findings
01Children with residual speech errors had significantly fewer tongue contour inflections (less complex tongue shapes) during rhotic productions compared to children with typical speech.
02Following seven hours of ultrasound biofeedback therapy, the number of tongue inflections increased significantly in the treatment group.
03Listener ratings of rhotic accuracy improved significantly after treatment, and higher tongue shape complexity scores were positively correlated with better perceptual ratings.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a small sample size (30 children total), and the RSE group was drawn from previous treatment studies. Attrition occurred in the RSE group; 15 completed mid-treatment and 13 completed post-treatment, with only 12 providing matched data for the paired analysis. The measure NINFL showed only moderate agreement between raters (Fleiss' kappa = 0.53). The study only analyzed mid-sagittal ultrasound images, which may miss important lateral tongue movements or lip configurations that contribute to rhotic quality. The phonetic environment was limited to four specific words in one sentence, so generalizability to other contexts is uncertain.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that high tongue complexity is the sole determinant of a correct rhotic. The study found that some 'accurate' rhotics were produced with simple tongue shapes (NINFL of 1), and the correlation between complexity and accuracy was not perfect. Focus on the perceptual outcome rather than chasing a specific number of tongue inflections in isolation.