ASHA Learning Pass

School-based clinicians generally agree that /r/ is one of the most challenging speech sounds to remediate. Despite research showing how persistent rhotic distortions can affect students’ social, academic, and even future employment prospects, some children are discharged from services because traditional approaches simply fail to work.

This journal self-study offers a response to the frustration often experienced by clinicians and clients struggling with persistent errors by showcasing some exciting new methods in /r/ intervention. Three articles describe promising results of different types of biofeedback-visual-acoustic, ultrasound, and electropalatographic interventions that are gradually becoming more accessible to clinicians. These articles also explore how biofeedback methods and other intervention modifications can adapt the principles of motor learning to increase efficacy of articulation intervention. The fourth article is an exploration of self-entrainment theory to promote speech sound change through the use of hand gestures.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• describe the difference between visual-acoustic, ultrasound, and electropalatographic biofeedback and how these methods can be implemented to remediate residual rhotic errors
• summarize how principles of motor learning can be manipulated to improve acquisition and learning of speech sound targets
• explain how theories of self-entrainment can be applied to speech sound intervention

What is a journal self-study?
A journal self-study is a set of articles from ASHA's peer-reviewed, scholarly journals and policy documents to read at your leisure. Some journal self-studies are online and others include a printed copy.

Learning Assessment 
Online, multiple-choice exam

Contents
The following articles are included in this course:

• Intensive Treatment for Persisting Rhotic Distortions: A Case Series, by Jonathan L. Preston and Megan C. Leece .
• Efficacy of Electropalatography for Treating Misarticulation of /r/, by Elaine R. Hitchcock, Tara McAllister Byun, Michelle Swartz, and Roberta Lazarus
• Enhancing Intervention for Residual Rhotic Errors Via App-Delivered Biofeedback: A Case Study, by Tara McAllister Byun, Heather Campbell, Helen Carey, Wendy Liang, Tae Hong Park, and Mario Svirsky
• The Effect of Hand Gesture Cues Within the Treatment of /r/ for a CollegeAged Adult With Persisting Childhood Apraxia of Speech, by Heather Leavy Rusiewicz and Jessica Lynch Rivera