No description available.

<p><b>Purpose:</b> Children with speech sound disorder (SSD) mispronounce more speech sounds than is typical for their age and a growing body of research suggests that a deficit in speech perception abilities contributes to development of the disorder. However, little work has been done to characterize the neurophysiological processes indexing speech perception deficits in SSD. The primary aim of the current study was to compare the neural activity underlying speech perception in young children with SSD and typical development (TD).</p><p><b>Method</b>: Twenty-eight children ages 4;1-6;0 participated in the current study. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while children completed a speech perception task which included phonetic (speech sound) and lexical (meaning) matches and mismatches. Groups were compared on their judgment accuracy for matches and mismatches as well as the mean amplitude of the Phonological Mapping Negativity (PMN) and N400 ERP components.</p><p><b>Results</b>: Children with SSD demonstrated lower judgment accuracy across the phonetic and lexical conditions compared to peers with TD. The ERPs elicited by lexical matches and mismatches did not distinguish the groups. However, in the phonetic condition, the SSD group exhibited a more consistent left lateralized PMN effect and a delayed N400 effect over frontal sites compared to the TD group.</p><p><b>Conclusions</b>: These findings provide some of the first evidence of a delay in the neurophysiological processing of phonological information for young children with SSD compared to their peers with TD. This delay was not present for the processing of lexical information, indicating a unique difference between children with SSD and TD related to speech perception of phonetic errors.</p>

No description available.

Healthcare professionals such as speech and language therapists are expected to change their practice throughout their career. However, from a practice perspective, there is a lack of knowledge around what practice change is, what it really takes, and why there are different trajectories. Consequently, therapists, managers and commissioners lack empirical evidence on which to base decisions about enabling practice change. In addition, intervention researchers lack basic sociological research around implementation that could inform their research designs, reporting and impact. This case-based sociological inquiry, underpinned by critical realist assumptions, was designed to address this knowledge gap. It includes a two-stage qualitative synthesis of 53 (then 16) studies where speech and language therapists explained the work of their practice in depth, and a primary qualitative study focused on one professional jurisdiction, children with speech sound difficulties (SSD). Forty two speech and language therapists from three NHS areas and independent practice in Scotland participated in individual interviews or self-organised pairs or focus groups to discuss in depth how and why they had changed their practice with these children. A variety of comparative methods were used to detail, understand and explain this particular aspect of the social world. The resulting theory of SSD practice change comprises six configured cases of practice change (Transforming; Redistributing; Venturing; Personalising; Delegating; Refining) emerging from an evolving and modifiable practice context. The work that had happened across four key aspects of this context (Intervention; Candidacy; Caseload; Service) explained what made each case possible, and how practice had come to be one way rather than another. Among its practical applications, the theory could help services plan more realistic practice change. In addition, the inductively developed layered model of SSD intervention change has the potential to contribute to speech and language therapy education as well as methodological discussions around complex interventions.