Articulation and Phonological Therapy Ap...

Articulation Therapy or Phonological Therapy: Which Therapy Approach to Use

Which therapy approach should you use when a child struggles to say sounds correctly?

Articulation Therapy Approach?

Phonological Therapy Approach?

Something else?

Speech Sound Screening Checklist:

There are four main approaches to working on speech sounds with children and teens.

Use the following checklist to determine which path is most appropriate for each client:

Articulation Therapy Approach

In articulation therapy, we focus on teaching children how to produce individual speech sounds correctly, starting with isolated sounds and gradually working up to using them in words, sentences, and conversation. This structured approach helps build muscle coordination and sound awareness, making speech clearer and more intelligible over time.

Choose the Articulation Therapy Approach if the Individual:

• Says specific sounds incorrectly
• Has certain sounds that are distorted or sound different than they should (such as a lisp)

Phonological Therapy Approach

• For children who have phonological processes, or problems with entire classes of sounds
• These children are often difficult to understand due to many sound errors
• All children use phonological processes up to certain ages but they disappear between 3-5 years
• Therapy differs from articulation because you don’t start with sounds in isolation, you start with minimal pairs of whole words to show the difference between the correct production and the child’s error
• Therapy Phases: Auditory discrimination, production at the single word level, phrase, sentence, unstructured conversation, structured conversation

Cycles Therapy Approach to Phonology

• For children who meet the following criteria:
  • Highly unintelligible (very difficult to understand)
  • Frequently leave out or omit speech sounds
  • Replace some sounds with other sounds
  • Don’t use very many different consonant sounds
• Instead of working on one phonological process until it is mastered, the children works on each process for a few sessions before moving on to the next.  Then, processes are cycled through and targeted again
• This approach is supposed to mirror typical phonological development

Click Here to Learn More About Using the Cycles Approach

Motor Speech Therapy Approach

Mumbling Therapy Approach

Other Speech Sound Therapy Approaches

• Core Word Therapy Approach: Good for children with very severe speech problems (like severe childhood apraxia of speech) or those with limited attention for drill and practice. Also helpful for children who make very slow progress in speech or who only say a few words because of their speech problemsA short list of common words that the child mis-pronounces is assembled

  These words are practiced in isolation and then the child gets to play with whatever he wants (as long as he will talk with the therapist). When those words come up in conversation, they are practiced with correct production

• Contextual Utilization: Pair the target sound in syllables with other sounds that will make it easier for the child to produce it (For example, production of a “t” may be facilitated in the context of a high front vowel)
• Minimal Oppositions Contrast Therapy: also known as “minimal pairs” therapy, uses pairs of words that differ by only one phoneme or single feature signaling a change in meaning, in an effort to establish contrasts not present in the child’s phonological system
• Maximal Oppositions Contrast Therapy: uses pairs of words in which one speech sound known and produced by the child is contrasted with a maximally opposing sound not known or produced by the child
• Treatment of the Empty Set: similar to maximal opposition contrasts, but uses pairs of words containing two maximally opposing sounds that are unknown to the child—ideally, an obstruent with a sonorant (e.g., /l/ vs. /s/
• Multiple Oppositions Contrast Therapy: a variation of the minimal opposition contrast approach that uses pairs of words contrasting a child’s error sound with three or four strategically selected sounds that reflect both maximal classification and maximal distinction
• Distinctive Feature Therapy: Target distinctive features that are missing in the child’s repertoire (frication, nasality, voicing, and place of articulation)
• Metaphon Therapy: Metaphon therapy is designed to teach metaphonological awareness, the awareness of the phonological structure of language. You teach the child about phonological rules, like the difference between noisy and quiet sounds for voiced vs. voiceless
• Naturalistic Speech Intelligibility Intervention: During natural activities, the child’s errors are recast when the child is most likely to repeat them but the child is not demanded to do so

More Information on the Additional Approaches Here: https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/articulation-and-phonology/#collapse_6

About the Author: Carrie Clark, MA CCC-SLP

Hi, I’m Carrie! I’m a speech-language pathologist from Columbia, Missouri, USA. I’ve worked with children and teenagers of all ages in schools, preschools, and even my own private practice. I love digging through the research on speech and language topics and breaking it down into step-by-step plans for my followers.

Fun Fact: At the last ASHA convention I went to, I purchased a double-wide booth so I could fill it with inflatable lounge chairs and phone chargers to create a hangout space.  Did you see me there???

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