SLP Speech Sound Production Disorders 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is characterized by which of the following triads of features?
- Hypernasality, hoarseness, and reduced loudness
- Inconsistent errors on repeated productions, distorted coarticulation, and inappropriate prosody (Correct answer)
- Consistent substitution errors, normal prosody, and intact repetition
- Weak muscles, reduced range of motion, and hyponasality
Correct answer: Inconsistent errors on repeated productions, distorted coarticulation, and inappropriate prosody
CAS is defined by inconsistent errors across repeated productions, impaired coarticulatory transitions, and inappropriate lexical or phrasal stress.
Question 2: The Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC) treatment is specifically designed for:
- Phonological disorders with process use
- Childhood Apraxia of Speech (Correct answer)
- Dysarthria from upper motor neuron damage
- Structural articulation errors secondary to cleft palate
Correct answer: Childhood Apraxia of Speech
DTTC is an evidence-based motor-learning treatment developed specifically for CAS, using simultaneous production, direct imitation, and fading cues.
Question 3: In dysarthria, hypernasality most directly results from:
- Reduced respiratory support
- Velopharyngeal incompetence due to soft palate weakness (Correct answer)
- Vocal fold hyperadduction
- Tongue tip weakness
Correct answer: Velopharyngeal incompetence due to soft palate weakness
Hypernasality in dysarthria is caused by inadequate velopharyngeal closure due to soft palate muscle weakness, allowing excessive nasal resonance.
Question 4: Which motor learning principle supports using variable practice (multiple targets in one session) rather than blocked practice for generalization?
- Specificity of practice
- Contextual interference effect (Correct answer)
- Massed practice principle
- Knowledge of performance feedback only
Correct answer: Contextual interference effect
The contextual interference effect shows that variable, interleaved practice leads to better retention and generalization compared to blocked practice, though initial acquisition is slower.
Question 5: A velopharyngeal closure assessment that provides direct visualization of the velopharyngeal port during speech is:
- Nasometer
- Nasopharyngoscopy (Correct answer)
- Spirometry
- Electropalatography
Correct answer: Nasopharyngoscopy
Nasopharyngoscopy is an endoscopic procedure that allows direct visual inspection of the velopharyngeal mechanism during speech tasks.
Question 6: The Speech Intelligibility Index (SII) in acoustic analysis primarily quantifies:
- The degree of vocal roughness
- The proportion of speech energy audible to listeners in various frequency bands (Correct answer)
- The ratio of voiced to voiceless segments
- The mean fundamental frequency across an utterance
Correct answer: The proportion of speech energy audible to listeners in various frequency bands
The SII measures the proportion of the long-term average speech spectrum that is audible to listeners, predicting how intelligible speech will be in given conditions.
Question 7: When selecting treatment targets using the complexity approach (Gierut), which sounds are prioritized?
- Early-developing sounds that are already stimulable
- Late-developing, non-stimulable sounds from the periphery of the phonological system (Correct answer)
- Sounds the child uses inconsistently
- The most frequent sounds in the ambient language
Correct answer: Late-developing, non-stimulable sounds from the periphery of the phonological system
The complexity approach targets later-developing, non-stimulable sounds to maximize system-wide generalization across untreated sounds.
SLP Speech Sound Production Disorders 4
Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is characterized by which of the following triads of features?