Sounds Vs. Patterns: A Case Comparison of Approaches for Articulation Therapy

Abstract

Traditional sound-level approaches for remediation of multiple sound errors in children have several limitations. Approaches which focus on remediation of patterns of errors may be more effective in such cases; however, only sparse information is available on such approaches. In the present study a traditional (sound-level) program for articulation intervention was compared to a phonemic contrasting (pattern) program to determine which was more efficient in remediation of multiple sound errors demonstrated by one child. Three indices were employed to judge clinical efficiency: 1) number of trials required to complete the program, 2) improvement on an articulation test after each phase of the program, and 3) improvement in spontaneous speech after each phase of the program. Results indicated that the pattern approach was more efficient in all areas.