Invoking the influence of emotion in central auditory processing to improve the treatment of speech impairments.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the benefits of invoking unconscious sentiment to improve the treatment of stuttering and misarticulation.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study of 80 participants with speech issues (44 patients with misarticulation and 36 with stuttering) who underwent comprehensive speech and hearing evaluations to confirm and diagnose speech difficulties. Speech and language pathologists then calculated either the percentage of correctly pronounce sounds in misarticulation cases or stuttering severity index-4 scores in cases of stuttering following the use of therapeutic stimuli recorded with familiar and non-familiar voices of similar linguistic and phonetic complexity. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to compare the data collected following the use of familiar and unfamiliar stimuli.

RESULTS: The analysis showed that the number of dysfluencies in cases of stuttering were significantly fewer when employing familiar voices than unfamiliar voices (3% errors vs 12% errors; Z= -5.16 p <0.001). Additionally, the percentages of correct pronouncing of target sounds in cases of articulation disorders were prominently higher when using familiar voices compared with unfamiliar voices (88% PCC vs 66% PCC; Z= -5.65, p <0.001) CONCLUSION: This study confirms the utility of invoking emotion in improving speech therapy and maximizing therapeutic outcomes. This study also recommends engaging families and friends in providing speech services to the speech-impaired population to improve patient progress.