Effects of Vocal Relaxation Treatment on the Articulation Accuracy and Compensatory Articulation of Cleft Palate Children

성대이완 조음치료가 구개파열 아동의 조음정확도 향상과 보상조음 감소에 미치는 효과

This study was designed to investigate the treatment, generalization, and maintenance effects of vocal relaxation treatment on compensatory articulation(i.e., glottalization of plosive sound) of three children with cleft palate. Multiple baseline design was applied to evaluate treatment, generalization, and maintenance effects. The targeted phonemes were ph/, th/, /t/ which Were frequently substituted by glottal stop sounds. The main component of the treatment program was vocal relaxation using humming and aspiration sound /h/. The following conclusions were deduced from the results: (1) the treatment program for compensatory articulation was effective in facilitating correct production of targeted phoneme and eliminating glottalization for all subjects, (2) the treatment effects on articulation accuracy were generalized to untreated phonemes (/c/, /c$c^{h}$/) for 2 subjects, (3) the treatment effects on decrease of glottalization were generalized to untreated phonemes for all subjects, and (4) the treatment effects were maintained for all subjects for 2 weeks after treatment was terminated.