Using CLEAR SPEECH to improve speech disorders following stroke or traumatic brain injury

CLEAR SPEECH program: Participants will first undergo two 1-hour ‘pre-practice’ treatment sessions aimed at instating CLEAR SPEECH production. During this phase participants will watch videos of people demonstrating ‘clear speech’ which they will be required to imitate. The clinician will then provide specific feedback on the participants speaking technique in order to shape their speech production into CLEAR SPEECH. Following the pre-practice phase participants will then move onto the intensive ‘practice’ phase of the treatment regime. This phase of the treatment program consists of 1-hour therapy sessions, 4 times a week, for a one month period. Daily home practice is also required and will be strictly monitored to ensure compliance. Therapy will involve practicing tasks such as producing functional phrases, reading short passages, and holding conversations in a CLEAR manner in order to increase the clarity and intelligibility of the individual’s speech. During treatment the clinician will provide general feedback on speech clarity, labelling speech attempts as either ‘clear’ or ‘unclear’. Modelling of CLEAR SPEECH will also be provided where necessary. In addition, the participant’s speech attempts will be recorded using a digital audio recorder. These speech samples will be played back to the participant intermittently to aid in the development of self-evaluation skills. Participants will rate the speech clarity of the recorded samples on a 10-point scale, with 1= very unclear speech and 10 = clear speech.