Late-acquired sounds, such as /r/ are difficult to learn and many children experience persistent errors on these sounds. The purpose of the present study is to determine whether treating these sounds earlier in the child's life may result in better outcomes.
Late-acquired sounds, such as /r/ are difficult to learn and many children experience persistent errors on these sounds. However, these sounds are often treated later in a child's life because they are not expected to be fully acquired until quite late--age 7-8 for some sounds. This practice places treatment in a time of the child's development in which they struggle to learn new sounds.The purpose of the present study is to determine whether treating these sounds earlier in the child's life may result in better outcomes, and to examine treatment efficacy and efficiency for two methods of treatment.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
NON_RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
16
children receive instruction in producing new sounds at the isolation, syllable and word level.
children receive instruction in producing new sounds at the word level
University of Wyoming
Laramie, Wyoming, United States
Treatment Efficacy: Number of correct productions of treated speech sounds in treatment words
Accurate Production of treatment sound at baseline and at posttest
Time frame: baseline until accuracy criterion is met; up to 18 weeks after final baseline session
Treatment Efficiency: Number of sessions required to meet accuracy criteria
Number of treatment sessions required to meet accuracy criteria (90% accuracy across three consecutive sessions or a maximum of 35 treatment sessions)
Time frame: baseline until accuracy criterion is met; up to 18 weeks after final baseline session
Session Length: Mean duration of sessions in minutes
Start and end time of session is recorded on scoresheet, then number of minutes for each session for each participant is found and the mean across all sessions is calculated.
Time frame: First treatment session until final treatment session. Final treatment session occurs when accuracy of treatment sound is met (90% accuracy across three consecutive sessions or a maximum of 35 treatment sessions)
Accuracy of production of untreated sounds measured on pretest and posttest probes
Some children may generalize their skills learned through treatment to sounds that were not treated in the trial.
Time frame: baseline and at posttest up to 18 weeks after final baseline session
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