Purpose: Phonologically complex targets (e.g., [pl-]) are understood to facilitate widespread gains following speech sound intervention, and yet, available research largely features word-"initial" clusters. The present study investigates intervention effects following treatment of complex clusters presented in word-"final"…

Increasingly, Chinese students are pursuing their studies abroad in English-speaking countries, such as the USA, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Despite the fact that they have studied English as a compulsory subject for a number of years and have passed multiple English proficiency tests, many still find it is difficult to communicate well in…

The failure of the phonological approach in establishing native-like speech in the learner is examined in connection with new knowledge derived from articulatory setting theory. This theory is based on the work of Honikman (1964) who demonstrated that there is an intimate relationship between the tongue and teeth in speech production.…

Thirty children (aged 4-10) and 10 adults repeated 2 target syllables, which were analyzed acoustically to evaluate development of identification and discrimination in children for the vowel duration cue to final consonant voicing. Results showed that category boundary, category separation, response consistency, and perceptual consistency…

The stimulus items from five commonly used speech assessment tools were examined for occurrences of vowels and diphthongs. Results indicated that the overall number of occurrences varied greatly from vowel to vowel and from test to test suggesting the need to supplement tests with additional stimulus words. (Author/DB)

The phonological patterns of 22 children with Down's Syndrome, aged 6-12, were tested to assess the relationships among cluster reduction, liquid simplification and sentence length, age, and intelligence quotient. Sentence length was found to be the primary predictor of cluster reduction and liquid simplification in the children's articulatory…

This article addresses the rationale for and issues related to the use of speech appliances, especially a removable speech appliance that positions the tongue to produce the correct /r/ phoneme. Research results suggest that this appliance was successful with a large group of clients. (Author/DB)

Examples are presented of schwa elisions from the sequence /r/-plus-consonant that are typical of contemporary general British pronunciation of English. This occurs often in lexical pronunciations and very often in syllables in proclitic or enclitic prosodic situations. (SW)

Five profoundly hearing-impaired children were taught to speak seven consonant sounds using palatometry which allows learners to see tongue-to-palate contact patterns used in sound production. Results demonstrated that visual articulatory modeling and feedback of linguapalatal contact patterns is an effective means of teaching consonants and…

The article presents a phonological process analysis classification for use with the most popular articulation tests, including a descriptive comparison across the tests of the number of opportunities for phonological patterns to be applied. (Author/DB)

The dictionary, intended primarily for teachers and students of phonetics, contains almost 2,000 terms used in the field of phonetics. Areas covered include articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual phonetics, classical and generative phonology, distinctive features, the phonology of English, and phonological change and variation. Terminology is…

Disordered processes and severity levels identified by the "Assessment of Phonological Processes" measure were compared with those obtained from three more easily administered conventional articulation tests in a case study of a phonologically disordered preschool child. Results indicated some adaptations and careful analysis are…

Describes a prototype electronic device that may be used in the classroom or in the laboratory to display pedagogical models and student articulations of target language sounds simultaneously. (Author/AM)

This manual offers a flexible and practical intervention program for preschoolers and school-aged children who have developmental articulation disorders; phonological disorders; or intelligibility disorders due to suprasegmental problems such as a rapid rate of speech, generally imprecise production, or low speaking volume. The program emphasizes…

This study evaluated whether variations in the structure of minimal versus maximal opposition treatments would result in empirical differences in phonological learning with three four-year-old boys who excluded at least six sounds from their phonetic and phonemic inventories. Results indicated that treatment of maximal oppositions led to greater…