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…

Briefly examines ways in which native English speakers achieve junctural fluency with reference to plosive consonant phonemes to focus attention of non-native teachers of English on pronunciation problems. Examines complete elision, suppression, glottal stop and fusion. (BK)

The application of the Articulation Index (AI) model to the fitting of linear amplification was evaluated for 12 subjects with sensorineural hearing loss. For all subjects, the relationship between percent-correct scores on a nonsense syllable test and AIs was monotonic, indicating that AI was effective for comparing conditions typical of those…

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.…

An auditory masking procedure was successfully used to identify those speech handicapped children who would maintain or improve the accuracy of speech production during a three-week treatment break. Subjects were 28 primary grade children with relatively low levels of phoneme acquisition. Results have implications for scheduling and treatment…

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 case report describes the speech characteristics of an eight-year-old normally hearing but misarticulating boy and the therapy procedures used over a two-month period. Cooperation and motivation were maintained through the use of cued speech to correct misarticulation of /s/ and /z/ sounds. (Author)

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)

This study of 60 young adults found that longer closure durations occurred in initial stop consonants compared with medial stops, and in bilabial stops compared with lingua-alveolar stops. Semi-intelligible hearing-impaired speakers produced stop consonants with longer closure durations than hearing young adults and hearing-impaired young adults…

The purpose of this comprehensive bibliography (approximately 200 items) is to facilitate the clinician's role in assessing and planning intervention for speech production of hard-of-hearing and deaf individuals. This set of references is alphabetized by separate categories that include articles, books, chapters in books and monographs. Consulting…

This article uses a case study to suggest that some children view speech-language therapy as a separate situation for learning practicing new sounds and language forms whereas the purpose of talking outside of therapy is meaningful communication. Clinical implications of this potential incompatibility between practicing speech and communicating…

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)