Clinical Approach to Acoustic Assessment

Abstract

With appropriate knowledge, skills, and flexibility, an acoustic assessment can be successfully completed in children of all ages. A key element to this success is creating a comfortable environment and a rapport with the child, thereby encouraging elicitation of the child’s natural speaking voice. Deviations from standard assessment protocols used in adults may be necessary for children, and the clinician must carefully consider the potential impact of these variations. It is essential for the clinician to understand the fundamentals of the assessment tasks and analysis methods, as with this basis she can accurately interpret acoustic assessment results from a variety of elicitation methods.