Biomedical subjects

B Hardcastle

Publications and source records attributed to B Hardcastle.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

CleftNet (Scotland): a network for the treatment of cleft palate speech using EPG.

Electropalatography (EPG) has proven its effectiveness in changing abnormal articulatory placement in cleft palate speech but clinicians often do not have ready access to such equipment. In order to improve access to EPG therapy, a network has been established which electronically links cleft palate centres throughout Scotland with EPG specialists based at Queen Margaret College (QMC), Edinburgh. The network was set up through a collaborative project entitled 'CleftNet Scotland', funded by the Scottish Office Department of Health. In this paper, the rationale and overarching aims of CleftNet Scotland are described and the efficacy of this form of EPG therapy illustrated by descriptions of two cases.

Child↗

PubMed1995

Electropalatographic and perceptual analysis of the speech of Cantonese children with cleft palate.

This study used electropalatographic and perceptual analysis to investigate the speech of two Cantonese children with repaired cleft palate. Some features of their speech, as identified from the perceptual analysis, have been previously reported as being typical of children with cleft palate. For example, fricatives and affricates were vulnerable to disruption, and obstruent sounds were judged by listeners to have posterior placement. However, some apparently language-specific characteristics were identified in the Cantonese-speaking children. First there was a relatively high incidence of initial consonant deletion, and for one subject /s/ and /f/ targets were produced as bilabial fricatives. EPG error patterns for target lingual obstruents were largely similar to those reported to occur in English- and Japanese-speaking children. In particular, broader and more posterior tongue-palate contact was observed, and intrasubject variability was noted. There was also evidence of simultaneous labial/velar and alveolar/velar constriction for labial and velar targets respectively. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Child↗

PubMed1995

A study of obstruent sounds in school-age children with speech disorders using electropalatography.

In this study EPG was used to investigate the articulatory characteristics of voiceless coronal obstruent targets /s, f, tf, t/ in ten children with functional articulation disorders. Perceptually based judgements of /s, f, tf/ revealed a variety of distortions, including palatal, lateralised and dental articulations. Their productions of /t/ were judged to be acceptable. From the EPG data, it was observed that individual children produced abnormal and often idiosyncratic tongue-palate contact for sounds which were heard as distorted. Some common trends were identified, for example, palatal fricatives and affricates were produced with constriction and a groove configuration in the posterior region of the palate. Lateralised articulations were generally associated with complete contact across the palate, increased tongue-palate contact and, for some children, incomplete lateral seal was observed. Place of articulation (as revealed by EPG) varied for coronal targets heard as lateralised. Some children produced these sounds with contact in the alveolar region, others had palatal contact and one child had contact in the velar region. These differences in place of articulation had not been identified from an auditory-based analysis. One child was heard to produce dental fricatives and affricates, and the EPG patterns were found to have an asymmetrical groove configuration in the anterior region of the palate. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1974