Generalization of the effects of treatment for articulation disorders

This study centers on an analysis of the generalization of the effects of t reatment for articulation disorders. The participants were 10 normal childr en between 5 and 6 years of age. A single-case, multiple baseline design wa s used with concurrent control across behaviors. Pre- and post-treatment ev aluations were used to observe generalization across phonetic contexts, acr oss sounds, across syllable positions and across linguistic units. Treatmen t consisted in shaping of vocal imitation trial of a selection of syllables in combination with one of two vowels (a, i). For the treatment of consona nt cluster errors a representative selection of each sound class of the fir st sound in the syllable was used. After treatment, most subjects had gener alized across phonetic contexts, across sounds, across syllabic positions a nd linguistic units. However, the nature of the trials was inappropriate to produce generalization to functional language.