Lauren Howe, Elizabeth Knaub, Alicia K. Barger
Effective Conversation Carry-Over in Articulation Treatment: A Narrative Approach
A common concern for speech language pathologists providing articulation therapy is
carry-over of correct phoneme production in drill-work, to correct phoneme production
during conversation. Phoneme-saturated verbal narratives utilizing speech cubes can
be a useful tool to ensure carry-over from drill-based articulation therapy to spontaneous
conversation. In a single-subject, multiple baseline design study, the following research
question was investigated: Does the implementation of initial /s/ phoneme saturated,
speech cubes and verbal narratives positively impact the accuracy of initial /s/ phoneme
productions and increase attempts at self-correction at the conversation level?
The participant was a seven year one month old female diagnosed with a Developmental
Articulation Disorder and Orofacial Myofunctional Disorder (e.g. Tongue Thrust.) The
client was receiving services for articulation to address /s/ and /r/ phonemes at
the conversational level. For baseline, a 15-minute conversation sample was obtained
using conversation starters. The intervention included the participant rolling eight
initial /s/ phoneme saturated speech cubes. She was instructed to create a verbal
narrative using each of the initial /s/ words and to self-monitor her incorrect productions.
Data was collected on the accuracy of initial /s/ productions and the number of self-corrections.
Data from each session was compared between two clinicians to maintain fidelity of
the study. The results indicated that using initial /s/ phoneme saturated, speech
cubes increased accuracy when producing target words but did not have an effect on
percentage of self-corrections in conversation. Phoneme-saturated speech cubes and
verbal narratives have the potential to effectively increase carry-over from drill
based therapy to spontaneous conversation.