Biofeedback in swallowing rehabilitation: updates on evidence and clinical practice

Schedule: 09:00-12:00
Blue Room
Organizers: Orofacial Motricity Department
Trainers: Helena Santos and Rita Cardoso

Workshop dedicated to train and discuss the use of the main biofeedback tools available for swallowing rehabilitation (e.g. surface EMG, IOPI).
What are the advantages?

When to use?

How to select the most appropriate strategy for each exercise and each person?

What to teach the patient?

How to evolve from continuous to intermittent use?

These and other questions will be discussed with the support of the most current scientific evidence.

The workshop includes discussion of clinical cases.

This workshop is an opportunity for training, updating and clarification of doubts on a topic of growing evidence and clinical use.

Between speech success and communication effectiveness – reflections and strategies for using AAC with children with childhood apraxia of speech

Schedule: 09:00-12:00
Red Room
Organizers: Augmentative Communication Department
Trainers: João Canossa Dias and Matilde Domingues

Apraxia of Speech in Childhood (AFI) is undeniably a Speech Sound Disorder (SPD) that can have a significant functional impact on children’s interactions and daily activities (ASHA, 2007; Iuzzini-Seigel & Murray, 2017). Caregivers’ reports highlight concerns at several levels, namely about their children’s (in)intelligibility, barriers to peer interaction, and the emotional response of frustration, which is frequent in communication situations that are challenging for the child with SLF. Families also report the responsibility of often having to act as a “voice” or “interpreter” for their child, with relevant emotional implications for the entire family system (Rusiewiez, Maize & Ptakowsky, 2018).

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) emerges, then, as a therapeutic option to ensure that the child with AFI has a means to communicate and/or a resource that will “bridge” between their current communicative skills and the effective use of speech as a communication tool in the future (OUTF, 2020). Using AAC strategies alongside work to improve speech seems to be the consensus recommendation, although this option raises questions and challenges for the speech therapist’s practice (Oommen & McCarthy, 2015).

When to choose to introduce a CAA medium?

What type of CAA system to choose?

What benefits and disadvantages might this approach have?

Is it possible to combine the intensive speech work required with the systematic use of augmentative communication strategies?

How to assess and manage the level of risk associated with communication situations?

How can a Reluctant Speaker be encouraged to become a Communication Risk-Taker, as designated by some authors (Hammer & Ebert, 2021)?

In a sharing environment, what we propose is to reflect on the practice, informed by the theory, trying to answer those and other questions about the proposed theme.

Counseling in Intervention with the Stutterer

Schedule: 13:00-16:00
Blue Room
Organizers: Fluency Department
Trainers: Helena Germano and Ana Andrade  

Counseling is one of the speech therapist’s intervention domains, as mentioned by ESLA (Professional Profile, 2019) and ASHA (Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 2016). It is defined by SPTF (2020) as the “Support provided to clients, family members, caregivers, and advocates (advocates), with the goal of helping them understand the disorder and its impact, and develop ways to cope with it. It is an integral part of the speech therapy intervention process and facilitates its success.”

Counseling in the intervention with the stutterer integrates a holistic approach, in co-construction of solutions to successfully deal with the communication problem and to promote personal growth and empowerment, facilitating the adjustment to the difficulties and disorders, to the intervention process and to the changes that result from it.

This workshop is intended to reflect on the usual practices of speech therapists and to begin to develop some techniques and strategies that allow them to intentionally integrate counseling into their clinical practice, enabling them to work on psychosocial and emotional aspects in articulation with informational and behavioral actions. The workshop is based on the following questions

What is counseling?
How is it different from psychotherapy?
How does it fit into the intervention with the stutterer?
What models exist?
The StAAR Model.
Practice and discussion.

These questions will be addressed using case analysis of people who stutter and their relational context, through practical activities implemented with the participants.

Beyond a sentence: script therapy and conversation work for people with aphasia

Schedule: 13:00-16:00
Red Room – Online
Organizers: Adult Language Department
Trainers: Anna Volkmer and Richard Talbot

We know that when working with people with speech, language and communication difficulties the most difficult part of therapy can be generalising gains made to real, everyday conversations. Script therapy is one approach to working on communication beyond the single word level. By choosing personally relevant target stimuli, we have found people with Aphasia or Primary Progressive Aphasia can improve fluency, content and most importantly confidence in communication. Working on conversational interactions can be equally important for people with Aphasia or Primary Progressive Aphasia and their families. This workshop will discuss the theoretical background for script therapy and conversational work. We will provide examples of how this works in practice using single case examples and present data from individual and group therapy.

Neurophysiology of physical resources in MO interventions

Schedule: 16:00-19:00
Blue Room
Organizers: Orofacial Motricity Department
Trainers: Alexandre Cavallieri Gomes and Susana Araújo

The application of physical resources appears, in the speech therapist’s intervention in MO, as an ally in achieving results. Knowledge of neurophysiology is fundamental to the understanding and careful and specific application of this type of approach.

The muscles of the face are characterized by maintaining intimate connections with the skin, differentiating themselves from other muscle groups in the body, due to their specificities. This musculature of the orofacial complex guarantees a distinct mechanism that responds to the precision of movement, adapting to the execution of the different stomatognathic functions.

Characteristics related to the muscle fibers and resistance potential to fatigue that the orofacial musculature presents reflect how these muscles should be solicited during exercise, namely when associated with physical agents (e.g. electrostimulation and neuromuscular bands).

The therapeutic approaches using different instruments and external devices, according to the most recent scientific evidence, contribute with wider responses in the process of evaluation and intervention, proving to be more effective and complementary in achieving myofunctional success.

In this workshop, through an open space for dialogue and sharing, it will be possible to understand the neurophysiological bases in BM and its relationship with physical resources, through practical examples. All practical examples will be carried out with an integrative approach to physical agent, neurophysiology and exercise physiology, with a focus on clinical decision making.

Assessment and intervention in reading and writing

Schedule: 16:00-19:00
Red Room
Organizers: Child Language Department
Trainers: Margarida Ramalho and Telma Pereira

The role of the speech therapist in the assessment of reading and writing has undergone an enormous development in recent decades, being today an unquestionable and recognized practice not only in the area of speech therapy, but also by various health and education professionals. In order to contribute to the training of speech therapists in this area, this workshop will address contents such as emergent literacy and pre-competencies for learning to read and write, models of reading and writing processing, guiding principles for assessing written language, skills, measures, procedures and instruments to be used in the assessment of reading and writing, and methodologies for intervention in reading and writing in early and advanced learning processes, illustrated through their application to clinical cases.

This workshop is intended to create a space for sharing and discussion of practices in the written language modality, based on recent theoretical knowledge and scientific evidence.