On the foundations of rhythm-based methods in Speech Therapy
Résumé
Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) use a variety of rhythmbased methods for speech and language rehabilitation, but their theoretical foundations remain imprecise. In order to investigate what "rhythm" refers to in speech therapy, we conducted an online survey among French-speaking SLPs, exploring their representations and practices involving rhythm.
398 French-speaking SLPs completed the survey. Results are in part puzzling. While SLPs frequently use rhythm-based interventions for oral language disorders, and intuitively consider rhythm as "a prerequisite for oral language development," they do not primarily link rhythm to a linguistic function. This is probably due to the historical psychomotor anchoring of French speech therapy, integrating mainly physio-cognitive aspects of rhythm. It may also explain why they relate rhythm deficits to widely different disorders: those where speech rhythm is noticeably impaired (prosodic disfluencies), and certain disorders showing no such impairment. Finally, SLPs reckon lacking insight on the underlying concepts and uses of rhythm.
We argue that reconciling linguistic, psychological and motor concepts of rhythm brings coherence to SLPs' practices, and gives credit to rhythm-based interventions. It also opens the way to the development of relevant assessment tools integrating all aspects of rhythm-which, as reported by our participants, are still cruelly lacking.
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