Efficacy in the use of gamification strategy in phonological therapy

Abstract

Purpose: to compare the efficacies of traditional phonological therapy and phonology associated with the gamification strategy in children with Phonological Disorder (PD). Methods: ten individuals with PD participated who showed the process of replacing liquids. They were randomized into two groups: traditional phonological therapy (control group - CG) and phonological therapy associated with a gamification strategy mediated by computer (gamification group - GG). The phonological intervention comprised, for both groups, stages of speech perception and production. Interventions differed in the perception stage, in which the GG was submitted to the game with gamification strategies. At the end of each session, individuals speech production (% of correct answers) were registered for each therapeutic stage, based on target words and sounding words. For analysis the following were considered: The individuals mean of correct answers for each therapeutic stage; PCC-R value (percentage of correct consonants) pre and post therapy; beyond of the number of sessions used to reach 85% of correct production. Results: there was no statistical difference between the types of intervention considering the average of correct answers of the productions and the number of sessions. There was a significant effect for pre- and post-therapy conditions in the comparison PCC-R values for both models. The individuals in the GC had the PCC-R values higher than those of GG. Conclusion: both models of intervention present similar results, providing an improvement in the individuals phonological performance from the first session.