“
Dr Sara Wood demonstrates EPG to rugby legend Jason White.
Rugby legend opens Wooden
Spoon Speech Clinic at QMU
F
ORMER SCOTLAND and British and Irish Lions star Jason White officially
opened a pioneering new speech centre for children and young people at QMU.
In an intimate ceremony, Jason launched the new Wooden Spoon Speech
Clinic, which will use ground-breaking technology to change the lives of those
with speech communication difficulties.
Wooden Spoon is the children’s charity of rugby in the UK and Ireland, and raises money
to improve the lives of disadvantaged young people. Thanks to a significant amount
of money donated by the Scottish arm of the charity, QMU’s speech and language
therapists can now offer specialist electropalatography (EPG) treatment to young
people from up and down the country.
What is electropalatography (EPG)?
Electropalatography is a technique developed by speech experts at QMU
which records where and when the tongue makes contact with the roof of
the mouth during speech. It can be a particularly useful means of helping
some children with intractable speech disorders because it provides visual
feedback to the child, which is not ordinarily available, and does not rely on
verbal instruction alone.
The client is fitted with an artificial palate, which is used in the pioneering
EPG therapy. It takes the form of a custom made dental palate, containing 62
electrodes that detect tongue contact on the roof of the mouth when the client
speaks. The tongue-to-palate contact patterns can be recorded, analysed
and compared to typical speech patterns to help the speech and language
therapist identify, more accurately, errors in the client’s speech. During a
session, the therapist also wears a customised palate to demonstrate the
correct patterns to the client. The client can clearly see the images that the
tongue makes on the computer screen and tries to copy these patterns.
Both the client and the therapist are able to see what the tongue is doing and
therefore work towards achieving accurate productions.
QMU’s Deputy Principal, Richard Butt, said: “We are very grateful to Wooden
Spoon for helping us invest in palates and the other technology that is needed
for EPG. We know that improvement in speech communication can have a
significant impact on people’s lives. As their speech becomes more easily
understood, confidence can increase, they can integrate more in social and
learning environments and their attainment can improve. In the longer term,
our speech technology can have the ability to improve life chances for people
who have had speech communication difficulties.”
Jason White added: “We are particularly proud to support the launch of the
Wooden Spoon Speech Clinic, which has evolved from QMU’s internationally
recognised research in speech and language sciences.” ❒
16
QMYOU / Health & Rehabilitation
I t was the first
time in my life
that anyone had
been able to
explain, and
show me, the
cause of many
of my speech
problems.”