Scaringi Lecture Series in Speech Language Pathology - Research Talk
Research Talk
Thursday April 3, 2025, 4:30 to 6:00 pm
2001 McGill College Ave. Room 606
Scaringi Lecture Series in Speech Language Pathology
McGill’s School of Communication Sciences and Disorders is proud to be hosting a research talk on voice intervention and a workshop on evidence-based practice across domains of SLP.
These events are funded by the Scaringi Lecture Series grant.
Speaker: Jarrad Van Stan Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital's Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation, and MGH Institute of Health Professions
Research Talk April 3, 2025, 4:30 to 6:00 pm 2001 McGill College Ave. Room 606
Floating ball voice therapy: Predicting clinical outcomes
Objectives: Floating ball voice therapy (FBVT) is a voice-controlled virtual environment based on a common treatment component across multiple evidence-based therapies: practicing to achieve a normative vocal efficiency ratio of vocal intensity divided by mean airflow. This study tested FBVT’s effects on patient-reported and clinician-rated outcomes as well as the potential of a set of novel variability metrics to predict individual patient generalization.
Methods: Ten patients with nonphonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (NPVH) practiced FBVT for 10 days. Outcomes were assessed by a vocal efficiency ratio, a validated NPVH index, the patient-reported Voice-Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL), and forced-choice auditory judgments of overall severity from three blinded speech-language pathologists. Exploration in early practice (Day 1) was estimated by how the patient’s two-dimensional variability (mean airflow and intensity) related to error (difference between the patient-produced and normative vocal efficiency ratio). Generalization from the game to spontaneous speech was evaluated using the validated NPVH index.
Results: Ten days of FBVT were associated with improved vocal efficiency (Cohen’s d = 1.3), NPVH index (d = −1.1), V-RQOL total score (d = 0.9), and overall auditory perceptual severity (odds ratio = 2.5). Patients who generalized on Day 10 exhibited airflow/intensity exploration that was more aligned with the error gradient on Day 1 (d = 0.6–1.2).
Conclusions: A relatively small dosage of FBVT (i.e., 10 practice days) was associated with multiple improved voice therapy outcomes. The FBVT variability metrics on Day 1 demonstrated strong potential to predict which patients generalized to connected speech. Future work can more thoroughly evaluate effects on outcomes and characterizing the quality of vocal exploration with a larger patient population.
Workshop for clinicians and researchers
April 4, 2025, 12:30 to 4:30 pm
Thomson House Ballroom 3650 McTavish St,
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1X1
Coffee break refreshments will be provided
Identifying the active ingredients across rehabilitation disciplines
Rehabilitation therapies are often labeled “black boxes” because, unlike pharmacologic treatments, their descriptions are vague where it matters most: the active ingredients. Common solutions to these problems focus on methodological rigor by imposing preregistration requirements, more rigorous statistical design, and the use of checklists to offer more complete information in publications. However, none of these approaches focus on theoretical rigor such as providing explicit directions on how to isolate the critical ingredients within therapy activities. Thus, a multidisciplinary group developed a theory-driven framework called the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS). The RTSS centers treatment theory at the heart of improving treatment descriptions, ensuring that clinical research advances rehabilitation science at the same time that it produces empirically useful treatments. Since creating the RTSS, it has been used to specify treatments across disciplines, across the academic-research-clinical care continuum, and multiple editorials have suggested its use. This workshop will: (1) explain the need for and advantages of a theory-based system for rehabilitation treatment specification, (2) describe the key concepts of the RTSS, (3) discuss potential applications in clinical education, research, and practice, (4) provide participants with hands-on opportunities to apply the RTSS to treatments used in their clinical practice or research efforts, and (5) inform workshop participants of resources available to assist them in applying the RTSS in their efforts.
SIGN UP FOR THE WORKSHOP (required):
The workshop is free of charge and open to all, space permitting.
Please sign up by March 15 using this form: Clinical Workshop Registration Form
