Assessment and treatment of impaired speech motor control in children with Down Syndrome

Assessment and Treatment of Impaired Speech Motor Control in Children with Down's Syndrome.

The Speech Science Research Centre (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh) was awarded funding of £348,000 from the MRC for a 3-year research project. The project started in October 2005 and the grant holders are Prof Bill Hardcastle and Dr Sara Wood from QMUC, and Prof Jennifer Wishart from Edinburgh University.

***Preliminary results are here***

Baily Thomas Charitable Trust

We received extra funding from the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust to continue the project for 6 months. The extra funding enables us to offer EPG therapy to the children with Down's syndrome who did not recieve it as part of the original project. This part of the project runs from January 2009 to June 2009.

Summary
Many people with Down's syndrome experience difficulties with speech and language which impairs their communication skills. Children and adults may have speech which is difficult to understand or they may have difficulty producing certain sounds. This limited intelligibility makes it difficult for these people to communicate successfully with others, limiting their ability to make friends and to access education and employment opportunities.

This project will use a technique called electropalatography (EPG) to assess and treat speech disorders in children and young people with Down's syndrome.

Research Aims

To identify the type of speech patterns produced by children with Down's syndrome
To compare speech patterns produced by children with Down's syndrome to speech patterns produced by children without Down's syndrome
To evaluate the role of EPG therapy in improving speech production skills in children with Down's syndrome
To determine if better speech production skills lead to increased speech intelligibility
To explore the relationship between speech intelligibility and cognitive level; speech perception; age and general motor development and to determine if any of these variables are good predictors of success in EPG therapy

Useful links for more information on Down's syndrome.

Article by Disability Solutions on Speech Intelligibility in DS
Down's Syndrome Association UK
National Association for Down Syndrome USA
Down's Syndrome Scotland

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