Toward an index of oral somatosensory acuity: Comparison of three measures in adults.
Olesia Gritsyk, Heather Kabakoff, Joanne Jingwen Li and 3 others
PMID 34746411WHAT IT FOUND
Only the bite block task predicted speech learning gains.
Speakers with weaker somatosensory compensation showed the largest improvement during biofeedback training. Stereognosis and phonetic awareness tasks did not predict learning outcomes.
Key findings
01Performance on the bite block task was the only somatosensory measure significantly associated with change in vowel production accuracy.
02The association was negative: participants with lower somatosensory acuity on the bite block task showed greater magnitude of change in the learning task.
03There were no significant correlations between the three somatosensory measures, suggesting they tap into distinct skills.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Very small sample size (n = 20) limits statistical power and generalizability. All participants were female, so results may not apply to males. The sample consisted of typical adults, not individuals with speech disorders. No correction for multiple comparisons was made, increasing the risk of a false positive finding. The bite block task relied on auditory masking, which was not guaranteed to be complete for all participants. The phonetic awareness task requires metalinguistic skill, which may confound results for clients with language impairments.
Declared interests
Authors have no relevant conflicts of interest to report.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that poor performance on oral stereognosis or phonetic awareness tasks indicates a client will fail to respond to biofeedback therapy. In this pilot, those tactile and explicit proprioceptive measures did not predict learning outcomes, and the only significant finding was that lower implicit somatosensory acuity on a bite block task was associated with greater improvement.