The evidence-base for computer-based speech therapy for childhood speech sound disorders is somewhat limited1

Abstract

Data sources: The authors employed three different methods to identify relevant studies (Furlong, Erickson, and Morris, 2017). First, they conducted a literature search that included the following databases: Medline (Ovid), CINAHL (Ebsco), EMBASE (Ovid), PsycINFO (Ovid), ProQuest Central, Cochrane Library, AMED (Ovid), ERIC (ProQuest), Linguistics and Language (LLBA) and SCOPUS (Elsevier). Second, they carried out a hand search of potential data sources, which might publish studies of content interest. Finally, other researchers with an interest in the topic were consulted to identify any additional studies that may have been missed with the other two search strategies. Study selection and assessment: A multistep process was used to select the studies congruent with the author’s selection criteria. Initially, the first author reviewed all titles identified in the search. The abstracts of those studies were read by the author and an independent reviewer. If the abstract did not provide sufficient study detail, the full text was read by both reviewers. All studies were then read by both reviewers independently and an inter-judge agreement figure of 91.7% was computed for the joint selection of studies that met the operational definition utilized by the researchers. Lack of agreement was handled by consensus discussion. When consensus was not achieved, a third reviewer carried out an independent review and dialogue among reviewers was carried out to reach final consensus. A total of 14 studies were identified through the selection process with the studies conducted from 1991 to 2008.