Systematic Review of Virtual Speech Therapists for Speech Disorders
Computer Speech & Language
Chen, Y. -P. P., Johnson, C., et al. (2016).
Computer Speech & Language, 37, 98-128.
This systematic review investigates the effect of virtual speech therapy (e.g., interactive computer programs) on speech production and/or speech comprehension in children and adults with articulation and phonological disorders.
Not stated
2004 through July 28, 2014
Various study designs including: meta-analysis; systematic reviews; control trials; randomized control trials; cohort study designs; case
series designs; case report designs
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For children who are deaf or hard of hearing and who have articulation or phonological disorders, Virtual Speech Therapists (VSTs), or computer-based speech therapy programs, "have a remarkable potential to create an interesting and engaging environment for these children for their therapy" (p. 118). The authors of this review found that "all the studies agreed on the effectiveness of the VSTs and there were no recommendations to not use VSTs; however, there was no consensus on the superiority of VSTs over human speech pathologists" (p. 127).
Findings indicated that automatic speech recognition (ASR), speech synthesis, and speech corpus were common choices to enrich computer-based speech therapy programs (i.e., virtual speech therapists [VSTs]). "The technical challenges of integrating cutting-edge technologies to develop a united functional VSTs dwarfs the clinical challenges" (p. 127).
Results indicated virtual speech therapists (VSTs), defined as a computer-based program, are effective; however, no consensus was found for VSTs being more effective than human speech pathologists.
