Effective Conversation Carry-Over in Articulation Treatment: A Narrative Approach

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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.