Foreword

As we publish this fourth issue of Seminars in Speech and Language, we reflect on the many ch-ch-ch-ch-changes (cf. David Bowie) we have made to the journal in our first year as co-editors-in-chief.

We started this year by sharing some of the major changes to the journal, including a shift to publishing articles in APA format and accepting a variety of article types through open submissions throughout the year. We took a chance at changing the format and have been pleased with the outcome. We have received a variety of article types throughout the year, and while we have had to reject some of these manuscripts, we have been pleased with the diversity in topics and types of articles submitted to the journal. We have constituted and put to work a new editorial board who have worked hard to review submissions and curate special forums/issues that have been published or will be published in the upcoming years. We continue to revel in the way our special issue on innovations in voice care for trans and nonbinary people has been received by the public and our readership. We appreciate the feedback; so please keep sharing your thoughts and ideas about the journal with us.

As part of this issue foreword, we are pleased to announce another change to the journal, author-accepted manuscripts (AAM) that will allow for the earliest access to an article once it has been accepted for publication. An AAM is the original manuscript document that has been accepted for publication. It is converted into a PDF with a DOI number to ensure maximum visibility for readership and citation. Of course, authors will have to consent to have their papers appear in early access format, but this will allow for accessibility to the latest-breaking science. We would also like to take this opportunity to share that the journal encourages the submission of articles that have been previously published in preprint repositories such as bioRxiv. If you have previously submitted your article to a preprint repository, you are welcome to update the preprint version with the AAM version 12 months after publication.

As an example of the diversity of topics and article types we have published throughout the year and look forward to publishing in future issues, we preview the four articles that constitute this fourth issue of our first year as editors-in-chief.

In this issue, we have included two pediatric articles, one research article, and one clinical seminar. In the research article, “Exploring the Caregiver-Reported Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI),” Jessica Riccardi (2023) reports the results of a survey of parents with children who have suffered TBI in addition to parents of children with typical development during the COVID-19 pandemic when many of these families and children were engaged in remote learning and instruction. This study is one of many that had to shift purpose during the pandemic and represents the flexibility with which researchers in speech and language adapted to meet the needs of a rapidly changing system, one that continues to rebound from a 3-year pandemic. In the article, the author included four different survey instruments validated in prior research that asked about family functioning, child's executive functioning, child's fatigue, and child's quality of life. Findings were contextualized for clinicians and researchers to understand the types of questions that might be asked of families as part of intake, assessment, and ongoing therapy.

In the clinical seminar, “Ankyloglossia: Typical Characteristics, Effects on Function, and Clinical Implications,” Ann Kummer (2023) provides a review of the current research evidence on ankyloglossia (i.e., tongue tie). While Dr. Kummer is now retired, she wrote this article as a result of being asked to testify in a court case related to ankyloglossia and thought it would be beneficial to share her findings in the form of a review. In this article, the clinical implications of ankyloglossia are discussed in terms of assessment and treatment recommendations related to speech, feeding, and other functional skills, as well as recommendations for frenotomy and referrals to other professionals.

This issue also includes two adult-focused research articles. In “Transadaptation and Validation of the Telugu Version of the Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI),” Dasari et al. (2023) report the psychometric properties of the DHI adapted for the Telugu language. Telugu is the third most common language in India, spoken by over 80 million people in the most populous country in the world. The DHI offers a concise, cost-effective, and user-friendly patient-reported outcome measure (PROM), which yields information on the functional impact of dysphagia in clinical populations. Prior to the current study, the cultural and linguistic adaptation of the DHI was available only to speakers of the Kannada language in India. Thus, the current adaptation of the DHI will expand and improve the clinical care of dysphagia for speakers of Telugu. Importantly, the current study provides a model for future cultural and linguistic adaptation of the DHI, specifically, and PROMs more broadly.

Lastly, Schaaf and colleagues (2023) examine an important, albeit under-examined, facet of clinical training in their research article, “Perception of Supervisory Styles.” The Supervisory Style Inventory (SSI) is a validated and widely used questionnaire in clinical supervision research, completed by supervisors and supervisees to determine the supervisor's prevailing supervisory style. The current study is the first of its kind to use the SSI to examine perceptions of clinical supervisory styles in speech-language pathology. Specifically, the authors examined the perception of supervisory styles in a cohort of supervisor–supervisee dyads to determine the extent to which supervisors' and supervisees' perceptions matched and if perceptual match/mismatch was related to supervisee's satisfaction.

We are excited to share this issue with our readership and hope that it demonstrates our commitment to publishing high-quality and clinically impactful research. Happy reading!

Publication History

Article published online:
25 September 2023

• References

• Dasari P, Verma H, Madishetty H, Pagidimarri J. , & Balaji J. (2023). Transadaptation and validation of the Telugu version of the Dysphagia Handicap Index. Seminars in Speech and Language 44 (04) 230-239
• Kummer A. (2023). Ankyloglossia: typical characteristics, effects on function, and clinical implications. Seminars in Speech and Language 44 (04) 217-229
• Riccardi JS. (2023). Exploring the caregiver-reported impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children with traumatic brain injury. Seminars in Speech and Language 44 (04) 205-216
• Schaaf S, Liljequist L, Wilson R. , & Hart S. (2023). Perception of supervisory styles. Seminars in Speech and Language 44 (04) 240-250