Updates in Phonological Intervention

Seminars in Speech and Language this very timely and innovative issue that provides updates on phonological intervention. The tireless and capable guest editor for this volume is Shelley Velleman, who has gathered together some of the most talented clinical researchers working with childhood phonological disability today. The challenge of working with children who demonstrate significantly delayed or disordered phonological development in the absence of known etiology continues to be substantial. Furthermore, in today’s climate of eligibility requirements and managed care, ever more emphasis is placed on helping such children achieve functional and intelligible speech most efficaciously. The majority of the articles in this volume concern themselves directly with the principles of assessment, description, readiness for therapy, and intervention techniques that hold the potential to improve the effectiveness and efficacy of work with such children. There were a number of possible ways to arrange the contributions, but we have decided to present them in the order in which clinical decision making most typically occurs. The first article, “Pattern-based approaches to phonological therapy,” by Stoel-Gammon, Stone-Goldman, and Glaspey, begins with the process of improving the description of children’s phonological abilities and needs by reviewing and extending the use of phonological process analysis in the assessment, therapeutic planning, and intervention options for children with multiple misarticulations. As with each of the other contributors, Stoel-Gammon et al progress from a theoretical model of the value of such pattern analysis to a clear illustration of how application of the approach was utilized to improve the phonological skills of an actual child seen for therapy. The second contribution, by Karen Forrest, addresses the question, “Are oral-motor exercises useful in the treatment of phonological/ articulatory disorders?” This article, together with the next contribution, “From phonological therapy to phonological awareness” by Joy Stackhouse, Bill Wells, Michelle Pascoe, and Rachel Rees, considers, in part, what skills may make a child ready for direct work on phonological targets. Forrest reviews what we currently know about the role of oral-motor work in facilitating phonological change. Although cautious about the ability of future research to provide evidence of the utility of oral-motor exercises in the treatment of children with phonological and articulatory disorders, Forrest concludes that little, if any, research currently supports the legitimacy of using such procedures to facilitate phonological development, particularly when alternative direct methods of working on speech sound production do appear to produce therapeutic gains. When clinicians implement those therapy approaches and components with the highest degree of researched efficacy, they make better use of scarce therapy time. A similar discussion is raised in portions of the chapter contributed by Stackhouse et al. The role of phonological awareness in the child’s readiness to participate in and profit PREFACE