The effectiveness of phonological intervention in preschool children: a single-subject design study

Abstract

The purpose was to investigate an intervention model for treating preschool children with phonological processes. Six children, three girls and three boys, between 4y 1m and 5y 7m, with similar developmental phonological disorder (PD) received an individually adjusted intervention including articulatory, phonological, and meta-phonological approaches. A single-subject multiple-baseline design with /f/ and /s/ as target phonemes and velar plosives and /r/ as control phonemes was used. An improved production of the treated phonemes was found in five of the children, while one girl established /f/ but not /s/. The control phonemes remained unchanged for all children. Six to 18 therapy sessions were needed to reach the intervention goal. The study highlights the importance of considering heterogeneity in children with PD.

Key words::

• Intervention
• phonology
• single-subject design

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the children and their families for their participation in this study.

The authors also wish to thank Lotta Hansson, Anna-Clara Reinholdson, and Charlotte Stübner, colleagues at the Department of Pediatric Speech and Language Pathology at Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing in the paper of the paper. This study was supported by a grant from Wilhelm and Martina Lundgren's Research Foundation II, Sunnerdahl's Handicap Foundation and the Local Research and Development Council of the Västra Götaland Region.