Table of contentsMethodologyResultsDiscussionConclusionNeural plasticity is the way in which the brain learns new behaviors and changes behaviorally and cognitively based on experience or pathology. There are 10 principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity that must be understood before recovery of the damaged, intact brain can begin. Neural plasticity decreases the severity of a given injury and recovers loss of function. Part of the brain can compensate for other parts that have been damaged or lost due to pathology, also called compensatory strategies. The authors describe how learning provides the best hope for changing and reshaping the damaged brain. The more we learn new ideas and topics, the more neural connections will be created. Preston, Brick, and Landi conducted a study using ultrasound biofeedback as a treatment option for children with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), which is related to several of these principles. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Children with CAS have difficulty sending messages from their brain to the muscles in their mouth. Messages are trying to be sent, but they are not going through. They may also have difficulty moving their lips or tongue into the correct position to pronounce certain sounds. These children know exactly what they want to say and have no cognitive problems. The difficulty lies in their brain trying to plan and program the muscles. Some deficits associated with this speech sound disorder are the inability to correctly produce speech sounds, stress and intonation, and coarticulatory transitions. The technique used in the article was ultrasound biofeedback. Biofeedback involves giving individuals feedback on their performance through visual information. The authors used ultrasound as per feedback because it was a better financial option and it was also easier to use with multiple clients. This study evaluated and determined the effectiveness of ultrasound biofeedback for children with persistent CAS-related sound errors. Specificity, repetition, intensity, and transfer are some of the principles of neural plasticity discussed by Kleim and Jones that apply to this ultrasound biofeedback treatment study. Specificity means that “the nature of the training experience in a certain modality will increase the ability to acquire behaviors in untrained modalities.” Rehearsal questions refer to the repetition of newly learned behaviors to ensure continued neural change. This is crucial for rehabilitation and is necessary for the improvement of the damaged brain. Transfer refers to the plasticity of one area of ​​the brain that influences and improves the functioning of another untrained area. The final principle that correlates with this treatment article concerns intensity. This means that if therapy and rehabilitation after brain injury includes higher and more vigorous simulation, then this will induce powerful long-term change. Methodology In Preston et al.'s study, six children aged nine to 15 years with persistent CAS were referred. participate through local schools and clinics. To confirm the children's diagnoses, a licensed speech-language pathologist (SLP) assessed the children by administering the articulation testGoldman-Fristoe, by acquiring speech samples and analyzing them. The speech-language pathologist also ensured that the children scored below 85% on the Verbal Motor Production Assessment for Children (VMPAC) sequencing subtest. These children were also required to show errors that could be corrected using tongue biofeedback. Eight different sound sequences were selected for each child and these were probed throughout the sessions. These sound sequences involved errors that the child made on lingual sounds since these are the sounds that could be seen thanks to ultrasound biofeedback. Eight words related to these sequences were probed at the end of each session (“eight target words x eight words per sequence = 64 words”). These words varied between monosyllabic and multisyllabic words. After the baseline pretreatment probes, only one target sequence was chosen to be used for treatment, while the other seven were not used. After several sessions, another target sequence was added. Once the child was 80% accurate with a certain sequence on two probes, a new one was added and the previous one was interrupted. If the child showed no progress on a target sequence after six sessions, the target was discontinued. There was a two-month follow-up after the study ended during which the GFTA and a sentence imitation task were given to these students. Treatment was provided by a speech-language pathologist or graduate student supervised by the first author. The sessions took place twice a week, lasting 60 minutes each, and there were 18 of these sessions, which lasted between 10 and 16 weeks. Ultrasound biofeedback took approximately 30 minutes for each session. The use of ultrasound biofeedback is part of the principle of specificity of neuroplasticity. The six children all had specific sounds that they worked to improve and maintain. This treatment technique was specific to the target sounds and sequences each child was working on. The first 15 minutes were spent on a target sequence, then they did a tabletop activity, then another 15 minutes on a different sequence. There were a large number of practice trials during each session. During the 24 sessions, 228 trials were obtained using this biofeedback approach. 22 of the 24 sessions resulted in at least 150 trials. This relates to the principle of neuroplasticity of repetition. These children were performing repeatedly in this particular skill, which helped their brains change and learn new connections. This also allowed the children to maintain their skills outside of the therapy room. This is also related to the principle of intensity. There were 24 sessions lasting approximately 50 minutes each. This was a fairly intensive therapeutic program that resulted in these children being more likely to make and maintain progress over time. Results The results of this study proved that this therapeutic approach was very beneficial for this group of children. Each participant showed a significant increase of at least two standard deviations on their processed sound sequence. As they repeated their workouts many times at an intense pace, their brains were able to change and learn new connections. The biofeedback technique facilitated speech improvement, which allowed these participants to increase the precision of their sound sequences at the word level, while some even showed generalization to untreated targets. This shows how important the transfer is. Some children were able to produce correct sound sequences which were not.