Rain Maker’s Roundup host, Mark Iorio, talks with his guest Joshua Cartagenova, CEO of Therapy Source, Inc.

(RNS) — A master’s program in speech-language pathology at Brigham Young University — the Provo, Utah, school operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — is under a formal accreditation review after it stopped providing a speech therapy service used by transgender clients to adapt their new voices.

The NWT’s health authority announced the suspension in a public notice last month. The authority said that will allow travel clinics to continue in smaller NWT communities and reduce wait times for children under five years old who need to see a speech pathologist. This temporary shift out of the schools will allow staff to focus on the hands-on work for those who need it most, as some youth age out of this program at five years of age,” the notice stated.

Approximately 13% of American public school students have special needs, such as speech-language issues and autism. Assistive technology can offer them new opportunities. Virtual learning and tools mean special-education students needn’t be separated from their classmates. Tools such as adaptive reading assistants and text-to-speech apps often can help special-education students participate in general education classrooms.

This study used a combined single-subject research design consisting of delayed multiple baseline across the participants and a multielement design to compare the effects of each music intervention technique targeting the child’s verbal response during playback of a practiced song. Findings demonstrated “singing” to be associated with the lowest latency compared to the other two interventions (“listening” and “singing and music”) across participants.