A STUDY OF CLASSROOM-BASED PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS TRAINING FOR PRESCHOOLERS WITH SPEECH AND OR LANGUAGE DISORDERS/

Sixteen preschool children with speech and/or language disorders recei ved phonological awareness training for a period of 9 months. Eight ch ildren attended a preschool classroom, and 8 children attended a pre-k indergarten classroom. The classrooms were located in a private school for children with speech and language disorders. A group of older chi ldren with speech and/or language disorders served as a nontreatment c omparison group. Children in the treatment groups received 15 minutes of small-group lessons twice each week for two semesters. Classroom-ba sed treatment focused on rhyming the first semester and on phoneme awa reness the second semester. Rhyming and phoneme awareness activities w ere adapted from the literature on the development of phonological awa reness in typically-achieving children. Results revealed that preschoo l children with speech and/or language disorders made significant impr ovement in rhyming and phoneme awareness. Comparisons with the non-tre atment group indicated that gains in phoneme awareness were likely a r esult of the treatment rather than maturation or other aspects of the curriculum. We recommend the inclusion of some form of phonological aw areness training, particularly phoneme awareness training, in interven tion programs for preschoolers.