Purpose: This archival study examined the relationship between the speech sound production skill of kindergarten children and literacy outcomes in Grades 1-3 in a data set where most children's vocabulary skills were within normal limits, speech therapy was not provided until 2nd grade, and phonological awareness instruction was discouraged at the…

Purpose: The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the impact of early intervention on speech and lexical measures for toddlers with cleft palate. Method: Speech measures of ten 27-month-old toddlers with cleft palate who had been referred for therapy at 17 months of age were compared to those of 10 toddlers with cleft palate who had…

Purpose: The present investigation examines the time, effort, and resources that evidence-based practice (EBP) requires, and looks at what types of results are obtained. Method: Principles of EBP as outlined by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association were applied to 3 treatment case studies. Results: The cases took between 3 and 7 hr to…

PURPOSE: In this article, I consider how research, clinical expertise, client values, a clinician's theoretical perspective, and service delivery considerations affect the decisions that clinicians make to treat children with speech-sound disorders (SSD). METHOD: After reviewing the research on phonological treatment, I discuss how a clinician's…

Purpose: This commentary, written in response to Alan Kamhi's paper, "Treatment Decisions for Children with Speech-Sound Disorders," further considers the "what" or goal selection process of decision making with the aim of efficiency--getting the most change in the shortest time. Method: My comments reflect a focus on the client values piece of…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present a detailed description of a family-focused treatment for preschool children who stutter that addresses communication behaviors and attitudinal reactions that children and their parents may exhibit in reaction to stuttering, as well as a preliminary evaluation of the outcomes of that treatment.…

PURPOSE: Remediation efforts with adolescents and adults with language-literacy deficits (LLD) may be hindered by concomitant factors such as decreased self-esteem and self-efficacy. Despite sound linguistically based remediation practices, treatment lacking integrated counseling components may fail to achieve optimal outcomes. In this tutorial,…

PURPOSE: To determine empirically which of three frequently observed rules in children with phonological disorders contributes most to difficulties in speaker intelligibility. METHOD: To evaluate the relative effects on intelligibility of deletion of final consonants (DFC), stopping of fricatives and affricates (SFA), and fronting of velars (FV),…

Purpose: This study investigated the phonological awareness and early literacy development of 12 children who presented at 3 years of age with moderate or severe speech impairment. The children's response to early intervention that included specific activities to facilitate phoneme awareness and letter knowledge, in addition to improving speech…

Pragmatics, the use of language in context, has been investigated only recently in the language used by children who stutter (CWS). Historically, researchers compared the length and complexity of the syntactic constructions produced by these children with those of children who do not stutter (CWNS) and generally found the CWS to be relatively…

The role of the speech-language pathologist (SLP) has developed considerably over the last 10 years given the medical and technological advances in life-sustaining procedures. Over time, children born with congenital, surgical, or "medically fragile" conditions have become mainstreamed into regular school-based settings, thus extending the…

A study examined the roles of 15 school speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The SLPs and resource teachers demonstrated similar types of language instruction. Oral language and speech were clearly specialty domains of the SLPs. The SLPs were also distinctive in terms of the instructional framework and service delivery structure. (Contains…

A study involving 51 speech-language pathologists serving 41 males (ages 2-9) with fragile X syndrome, found the majority reported the boys exhibit a visually based, experiential or holistic learning preference. Speech goals focused on slowing rate and increasing precision for verbal children and using assistive technology for nonverbal children.…

Cognitive mechanisms that may account for the phenomena of whole-word phonology and phonological templates in children are described and strategies for identifying whole-word phonological patterns in normal and disordered phonologies are proposed. Intervention strategies that draw on these same mechanisms as a way to overcome their inappropriate…

This article highlights the link between lexical and phonological acquisition by considering learning by children beyond the 50-word stage and by applying cognitive models of spoken word processing to development. The effects of lexical and phonological variables on perception, production, and learning are discussed in the context of a…