Digital Tools in Speech Therapy: Features of Supporting Children with Speech Needs in an Inclusive Environment

Abstract

The growing number of children with speech disorders in inclusive institutions in Ukraine necessitates the search for new solutions for systematizing speech therapy care that would combine high efficiency with accessibility and individualization of the correction process. The purpose of the study is to empirically verify the effectiveness of digital tools organized according to the neuro-psycho-linguistic-synergistic model in correcting speech disorders in preschool children in an inclusive environment compared to traditional Ukrainian methods. The controlled study was based on 45 children aged 5–7 years with phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment, dysarthria and delayed speech development in two inclusive preschool institutions in Kyiv (control conditions, n=22, traditional methods; experimental conditions, n=23, traditional methods and 10 computer programs at four levels). The experimental group demonstrated a twofold increase in the rate of progress in all parameters: the production of speech sounds deteriorated by 58% compared to 33% in the control group (p<0.001, d=1.89), phonemic hearing deteriorated by 78% compared to 37% (p<0.001, d=2.24), vocabulary deteriorated by 50% compared to 24% (p<0.001, d=1.26). The results confirm the synergy of using digital tools with the traditional approach and prove the effectiveness of the neuropsycholinguistic-synergistic strategy for structuring speech therapy support in the inclusive environment of Ukraine.